Norton Juster Quotes
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In this box are all the words I know… Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places.
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You must never feel badly about making mistakes.
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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
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There is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Freedom is not a license for chaos.
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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?
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How can you see something that isn't there?" yawned the Humbug, who wasn't fully awake yet. "Sometimes, it's much simpler than seeing things that are,"he said. "For instance, 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." "Then where is Reality?" barked Tock. "Right here,"cried Alec, waving his arms.
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Expect everything so that nothing comes unexpected.
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Sometimes I find the best way of getting from one place to another is simply to erase everything and begin again.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully.
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...I'll continue to see things as a child. It's not so far to fall.
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But I suppose there's a lot to see everywhere, if only you keep your eyes open.
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Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.
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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?
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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.
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The way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.
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I think really good books can be read by anybody.
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A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.