Norton Juster Quotes

49 Sourced Quotes

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
The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.

Norton Juster
I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear. "Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.

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

Norton Juster
Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words—" "You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now.

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
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
It has been a long trip," said Milo, climbing onto the couch where the princesses sat; "but we would have been here much sooner if I hadn't made so many mistakes. I'm afraid it's all my fault.

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

Norton Juster
You see... it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?

Norton Juster
But I could never have done it," he objected, "without everyone else's help." "That may be true," said Reason gravely,"but you had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.

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

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
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
The way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.

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
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
If something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.

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

Norton Juster
Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?

Norton Juster
A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.

Norton Juster