Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth (1961)

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

Norton Juster
Since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.

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

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

Norton Juster
Things which are equally bad are also equally good. Try to look at the bright side of things. - Humbug

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

Norton Juster
Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not.

Norton Juster
I don't know of any wrong road to Dictionopolis, so if this road goes to Dictionopolis at all it must be the right road, and if it doesn't it must be the right road to somewhere else, because there are no wrong roads to anywhere. Do you think it will rain?

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

Norton Juster
He paused again as a tear of longing rolled from cheek to lip with the sweet-salty taste of an old memory.

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
We're right here on this very spot. Besides, being lost is never a matter of not knowing where you are; it's a matter of not knowing where you aren't - and I don't care at all about where I'm not.

Norton Juster
It's very much like your trying to reach infinity. You know that it's there, you just don't know where-but just because you can never reach it doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for.

Norton Juster
Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.

Norton Juster
Perhaps someday you can have one city as easy to see as Illusions and as hard to forget as Reality.

Norton Juster
Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet.

Norton Juster
Everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best.

Norton Juster
Milo tried very hard to understand all the things he'd been told, and all the things he'd seen, and, as he spoke, one curious thing still bothered him. "Why is it, " he said quietly, "that quite often even the things which are correct just don't seem to be right?"

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
And some looked even more like each other than they did like themselves.

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
You see, years ago I was just an ordinary bee minding my own business, smelling flowers all day, and occasionally picking up part-time work in people's bonnets. Then one day I realized that I'd never amount to anything without an education and, being naturally adept at spelling, I decided that—

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
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