Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated is a 1940 book by James Thurber. Thurber updates some old fables and creates some new ones of his own too. Notably there is 'The Bear Who Could Take It Or Leave It Alone' about a bear who lapses into alcoholism before sobering up and going too far that way. (He used to say 'See what the bears in the back room will have.') Also an updated version of 'Little Red Riding Hood' which ends with the immortal lines, "even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead. " All the fables have one-line morals. The moral of 'Little Red Riding Hood' is "Young girls are not so easy to fool these days." Another fable concerns a non-materialist chipmunk who likes to arrange nuts in pretty patterns rather than just piling up as many as he can. He is constantly nagged by his chipmunk wife for this.
All fables previously appeared in The New Yorker.
Famous quotes containing the words fables, time, famous, poems and/or illustrated:
“Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies.”
—Bible: New Testament 1 Timothy 1:4.
“It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious fervour and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious?”
—Christopher Hampton (b. 1946)
“No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8 B.C.)
“The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)