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 life, hard and/or times:
“for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion
Larger than in life they managed—
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1985)
“We need to see men and women as equal partners, but it’s hard to think of movies that do that. When I talk to people, they think of movies of forty-five years ago! Hepburn and Tracy!”
—Betty Friedan (b. 1921)
“There is no difference between the client and the prostitute. If a man goes to a prostitute, he is also a prostitute.”
—Sister Michele, Indian nun. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 35 (January 16, 1994)