Top 100 Norton Juster Quotes
#1. You can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.
Norton Juster
#2. Oh, don't worry about that," said the Mathemagician as he scooped up the pieces. "We use the broken ones for fractions.
Norton Juster
#3. It's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.
Norton Juster
#4. Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?
Norton Juster
#5. You weren't thinking and you weren't paying attention either. People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums.
Norton Juster
#6. Sometimes I find the best way of getting from one place to another is simply to erase everything and begin again.
Norton Juster
#7. Just because you have a choice, it doesn't mean that any of them 'has' to be right.
Norton Juster
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.
Norton Juster
#11. But just because you can never reach it, doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for.
Norton Juster
#12. And, most important of all," added the Mathemagician, "here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you."
He placed in Milo's breast pocket a small gleaming pencil which, except for the size, was much like his own.
Norton Juster
#13. And, most of all, of how much could be accomplished with just a little thought.
Norton Juster
#14. Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo.
"Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context.
Norton Juster
#15. I write best in the morning, and I can only write for about half a day, that's about it.
Norton Juster
#16. 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
#17. 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
#18. 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
#19. Do you think it will rain?
Milo: But I thought you were the Weather Man?
No, I'm the Whether man, for it is more important to know whether there will be weather, whether than what the weather will be.
Norton Juster
#20. We never choose which words to use, for as long as they mean what they mean to mean, we don't care if they make sense or nonsense.
Norton Juster
#21. People always ask about my influences, and they cite a bunch of people I've never heard of.
Norton Juster
#22. Many of the things which can never be, often are.
Norton Juster
#23. 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
#25. A good book written for children can be read by adults.
Norton Juster
#26. Perhaps someday you can have one city as easy to see as Illusions and as hard to forget as Reality.
Norton Juster
#27. 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
#28. Every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to Conclusions whether you like it or not.
Norton Juster
#29. I remember when I was a kid in school and teachers would explain things to me about what I read, and I'd think, Where did they get that? I didn't read that in there. Later you look at it and think, That's kind of an interesting idea.
Norton Juster
#30. 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
#31. The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort.
Norton Juster
#32. You often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons.
Norton Juster
#33. 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
#34. Perhaps you'd care for a synonym bun, suggested the duke.
Norton Juster
#35. Mirages are things that aren't really there that you can see very clearly."
"How do you see something that isn't there?" ...
"sometimes it's much simpler than seeing things that are" ...
Norton Juster
#36. There is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye.
Norton Juster
#37. I think really good books can be read by anybody.
Norton Juster
#38. Everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best.
Norton Juster
#39. 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
#40. 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
#41. I'm the Whether Man, not the Weather Man, for after all it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be.
Norton Juster
#42. It's bad enough wasting time without killing it.
Norton Juster
#43. Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.
Norton Juster
#44. 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
#45. 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
#46. Today people use as many words as they can and think themselves very wise for doing so. For always remember that while it is wrong to use too few, it is often far worse to use too many.
Norton Juster
#47. AHA!" interrupted Officer Shrift, making another note in his little book. "Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.
Norton Juster
#48. What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.
Norton Juster
#49. I wouldn't eat too many of those [half-baked ideas] if I were you. They may look good, but you can get terribly sick of them."
-Tock
Norton Juster
#50. Why don't they live in Illusions?' suggested the Humbug. 'It's much prettier.'
'Many of them do,' he answered, walking in the direction of the forest once again, 'but 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
#51. 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
#52. Expect everything so that nothing comes unexpected.
Norton Juster
#53. But I find the best things I do, I do when I'm trying to avoid doing something else I'm supposed to be doing. You know, you're working on something. You get bugged, or you lose your enthusiasm or something. So you turn to something else with an absolute vengeance.
Norton Juster
#54. I didn't know that I was going to have to eat my own words:
- Milo
Norton Juster
#55. Don't worry," Milo replied; "I'll just wrap one up for later," and he folded his napkin around "EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR THE BEST.
Norton Juster
#56. 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
#57. And when I'm writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don't necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I'm working on, because they're simply my way of getting to know the characters.
Norton Juster
#58. You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and not get wet.
Norton Juster
#59. And Milo, full of thoughts and questions, curled up on the pages of tomorrow's music and eagerly awaited the dawn.
Norton Juster
#60. 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
#61. You're ... in ... the ... Dol ... drums, wailed a voice that sounded far away.
Norton Juster
#62. So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.
Norton Juster
#63. it seemed a great wonder that the world, which was so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty.
Norton Juster
#64. And some looked even more like each other than they did like themselves.
Norton Juster
#65. 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
#66. 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
#67. What you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.
Norton Juster
#68. And that's why people no longer care which words they use as long as they use lots of them.
Norton Juster
#69. 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
#70. When you're very young and you learn something - a fact, a piece of information, whatever - it doesn't connect to anything.
Norton Juster
#71. Why is it,' he said quietly, 'that quite often even the things which are correct just don't seem to be right?
Norton Juster
#73. You can get in a lot of trouble mixing up words or just not knowing how to spell them. If we ever get out of here, I'm going to make sure to learn all about them.
Norton Juster
#74. There are other advantages," continued the child. "For instance, if one rat were cornered by nine cats, on the average, each cat would be ten percent rat and the rat would be ninety percent cat. If you happened to be a rat, you can see how much nicer it would make things.
Norton Juster
#75. He punctuated this last thought with such a deep sigh that a house sparrow singing near by stopped and rushed home to be with his family.
Norton Juster
#76. Words and numbers are of equal value, for in the cloak of knowledge one is warp and the other woof.
Norton Juster
#77. I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.
Norton Juster
#78. One of the problems you have when you read with kids is that once they like something they want you to read it a hundred times.
Norton Juster
#79. Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet.
Norton Juster
#80. I think kids slowly begin to realize that what they're learning relates to other things they know. Then learning starts to get more and more exciting.
Norton Juster
#81. Since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.
Norton Juster
#82. If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.
Norton Juster
#84. 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
#85. Very serious, very serious. You can't get in without a reason.
Norton Juster
#86. 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
#88. From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.
Norton Juster
#89. Things which are equally bad are also equally good. Try to look at the bright side of things.
- Humbug
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#90. Being lost is not a matter of knowing where you are. It's a matter of knowing where you aren't.
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#91. They never see what they're too much of a hurry to look for
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#92. They all looked very much like the residents of any small valley to which you've never been.
Norton Juster
#93. You must excuse my gruff conduct," the watchdog said, after they'd been driving for some time, "but you see it's traditional for watchdogs to be ferocious.
Norton Juster
#94. The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way.
Norton Juster
#95. For always remember that while it is wrong to use too few, it is often far worse to use too many." - Which Macabre
Norton Juster
#96. But I suppose there's a lot to see everywhere, if only you keep your eyes open.
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#97. Why, did you know that there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds? But, sadly enough, no one pays any attention to them these days.
Norton Juster
#98. But it's not just learning things that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters.
Norton Juster
#99. What you can do is often a matter of what you will do.
Norton Juster
#100. There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction.
Norton Juster
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