Norton Juster The Phantom Tollbooth Quotes & Sayings

And that's why people no longer care which words they use as long as they use lots of them. — Norton Juster

So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we're not comparing it with anything.
And anyway, we're all dead, or never born, and the whole thing really is a dream.
There, you see. That's a funny side. — Hugh Laurie

In communities, at work, but particularly in families, people are put together in something like a three-legged race. God means us to cross the finish line together, and all the other people tied together with us play some part in our progress. They are oftentimes to rouse our stubborn sins to the surface, where we can deal with them and overcome them. Bundled together in families, a giant seven or nine or fifteen legged pack, we seem to make very poor progress indeed and fall to the ground in bickering heaps with some regularity. But God has put us together - has appointed each person in your bundle specifically for you, and you for them. And so, 'little children, let us love one another' with might and main, and keep hopping together toward the finish line. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd even bothered. — Norton Juster

God's will is always your sanctification. — Kevin DeYoung

Many of the things which can never be, often are. — Norton Juster

What I meant by that is, any time you have adversity, now you've got a chance to see all of these guys play every game the rest of the way like it's a playoff game. What you want guys to do when there's adversity is to play harder and play better, and that's when you see what kind of guys you have in your locker room. — Mike Shanahan

So each one of you agrees to disagree with whatever the other one agrees with, but if you both disagree with the same thing, aren't you really in agreement? — Norton Juster

I've never written jokes. I mean, I'll write things on a piece of paper and riff on them onstage. — David Cross

Just follow that line forever," said the Mathemagician, "and when you reach the end, turn left. There you'll find the land of Infinity, where the tallest, the shortest, the biggest, the smallest, and the most and least of everything are kept."
"I don't have that much time," said Milo anxiously. "isn't there a quicker way?"
"Well, you might try this flight of stairs," he suggested, opening another door and pointing up."It goes there, too. — Norton Juster

I received a grant from The Ford Foundation to write a book for kids about urban perception, or how people experience cities, but I kept putting off writing it. Instead I started to write what became The Phantom Tollbooth. — Norton Juster

Among them was a middle-aged man supported by two broken sticks. His legs were bent permanently beneath him by accident or disease, and it took him five minutes to cross the room, collect his ballot and shuffle into the booth in front of me. It was painful to watch; as he edged forward I became aware that my heart was racing. Finally - finally - the referendum really was under way. What would happen next? Could Eurico and Basilio have more support than I had assumed? How could the violence of the last seven months fail to have an effect? I should have looked away, but I watched, and saw the man on sticks painstakingly mark his cross in the lower of the two boxes, the one rejecting continuing association with Indonesia. Then he folded the paper, turned his legs around, and began walking slowly towards the ballot box. — Richard Lloyd Parry

There is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye. — Norton Juster

When you can't change the direction of the wind - adjust your sails — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

I held in the sneeze, though, by thinking of the word cucumber. It always works. — Merrie Haskell

That's the way most everyone gets here. It's really quite simple: every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to Conclusions whether you like it or not. It's such an easy trip to make that I've been here hundreds of times. — Norton Juster

They [free market policies] were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say always. — Joseph Stiglitz

For God alone is our salvation; to know him is salvation. He is in us all the time, else we could never move to seek him. — George MacDonald

There are no bigger donkeys than these workers ... Look at our 'craftsmen'; Sad that world history should be be made with such people. — Karl Marx

Somewhere in the darkness the Beast Lord prowled. I didn't know what he looked like. I didn't know the species of his beast. Few people outside of the Pack claimed to have met him and nobody seemed willing to discuss the experience. The only thing certain about him was power. By the latest count, he commanded a force of three hundred and thirty-seven shapechangers in Atlanta alone. He wasn't in charge because he was the smartest or the most popular; he ruled because of those three hundred and thirty-seven he was unquestionably the strongest. He was in charge by the right of might; that is, he had yet to meet anyone who could kick his ass. — Ilona Andrews