Norton Juster Quotes

49 Sourced Quotes

You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and not get wet.

Norton Juster
Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.

Norton Juster
I'll continue to see things as a child. It's not so far to fall.

Norton Juster
Oh dear, all those words again," thought Milo as he climbed into the wagon with Tock and the cabinet members. "How are you going to make it move? It doesn't have a—" "Be very quiet," advised the duke, "for it goes without saying.

Norton Juster
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
But I suppose there's a lot to see everywhere, if only you keep your eyes open.

Norton Juster
And now," he continued, speaking to Milo, "where were you on the night of July 27?" "What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo. "It's my birthday, that's what," said the policeman as he entered "Forgot my birthday" in his little book. "Boys always forget other people's birthdays.

Norton Juster
It's just as bad to live in a place where what you do see isn't there as it is to live in one where what you don't see is.

Norton Juster
For instance," said the boy again, "if Christmas trees were people and people were Christmas trees, we'd all be chopped down, put up in the living room, and covered in tinsel, while the trees opened our presents." "What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo. "Nothing at all," he answered, "but it's an interesting possibility, don't you think?

Norton Juster
You must never feel badly about making mistakes... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.

Norton Juster
You can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.

Norton Juster
So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.

Norton Juster
They all looked very much like the residents of any small valley to which you've never been.

Norton Juster
You see, to tall men I'm a midget, and to short men I'm a giant; to the skinny ones I'm a fat man, and to the fat ones I'm a thin man.

Norton Juster
Words and numbers are of equal value, for, in the cloak of knowledge, one is warp and the other woof. It is no more important to count the sands than it is to name the stars.

Norton Juster
Where is the sound?" someone hastily scribbled on the blackboard, and they all waited anxiously for the reply. Milo caught his breath, picked up the chalk, and explained simply, "It's on the tip of my tongue.

Norton Juster
Why, can you imagine what would happen if we named all the twos Henry or George or Robert or John or lots of other things? You'd have to say Robert plus John equals four, and if the four's name were Albert, things would be hopeless.

Norton Juster
What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.

Norton Juster
The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort.

Norton Juster
Once upon a time, there was a sensible straight line who was hopelessly in love with a dot.

Norton Juster
Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.

Norton Juster
Ah, this is fine," he cried triumphantly, holding up a small medallion on a chain. He dusted it off, and engraved on one side were the words "WHY NOT?" "That's a good reason for almost anything - a bit used perhaps, but still quite serviceable.

Norton Juster
And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.

Norton Juster
Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail?" "Where would you find a beaver that big?" grumbled the Humbug as his pencil point snapped. "I'm sure I don't know," he replied, "but if you did, you'd certainly know what to do with him.

Norton Juster
Just because you have a choice, it doesn't mean that any of them 'has' to be right.

Norton Juster