My Life and Hard Times is the 1933 autobiography of James Thurber. It is considered his greatest work as he relates in bewildered deadpan prose the eccentric goings on of his family and the town beyond (Columbus, Ohio).
Characters include the maid who lives in constant fear of being hypnotised; a grandfather who believes that the American Civil War is still going on; a mother who fears electricity is leaking all over the house and Muggs, an Airedale Terrier that had a liking for biting people.
The book was a best seller and also achieved high critical praise. Russell Baker writing in the New York Times said it was "possibly the shortest and most elegant autobiography ever". Ogden Nash said it was "just about the best thing I ever read"', and Dorothy Parker said "Mad, I don't say. Genius I grant you."
Famous quotes containing the words hard times, life, hard and/or times:
“Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
““Were not all her life but storm,
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble times ...””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)