"James Thurber: Men, Women, and Dogs," p. 228
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)
“I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train…”
Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 40 : Which Mr. Flaherty Does Not Quite Explain
Context: The Wardens of Earth sometimes unbar strange windows, I suspect — windows which face on other worlds than ours: and They permit this-or-that man to peer out fleetingly, perhaps, just for the joke's sake; since always They humorously contrive matters so this man shall never be able to convince his fellows of what he has seen or of the fact that he was granted any peep at all. The Wardens without fail arrange what we call — gravely, too — "some natural explanation."
“A face at the window,
A tap on the pane;
Who is it that wants me
To-night in the rain?”
The Messenger at Night.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: The Stars in their Courses (1931), p. 3.
Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
“I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.”
Context: Any man facing a major decision acts, consciously or otherwise, upon the training and beliefs of a lifetime. This is no less true of a military commander than of a surgeon who, while operating, suddenly encounters an unsuspected complication. In both instances, the men must act immediately, with little time for reflection, and if they are successful in dealing with the unexpected it is upon the basis of past experience and training. As any decisions that I made during World War II sprang from the forty-four years' service that were behind me in 1941, I wish to acquaint the reader with the background of my professional life so that he may better understand their origins.
p. viii
Ch 28 : The Shallowest Sort of Mysticism
The Cream of the Jest (1917)
Context: I quite fixedly believe the Wardens of Earth sometimes unbar strange windows, that face on other worlds than ours. And some of us, I think, once in a while get a peep through these windows. But we are not permitted to get a long peep, or an unobstructed peep, nor very certainly, are we permitted to see all there is — out yonder. The fatal fault, sir, of your theorizing is that it is too complete. It aims to throw light upon the universe, and therefore is self-evidently moonshine. The Wardens of Earth do not desire that we should understand the universe, Mr. Kennaston; it is part of Their appointed task to insure that we never do; and because of Their efficiency every notion that any man, dead, living, or unborn, might form as to the universe will necessarily prove wrong.
