Norton Juster Quotes
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A good book written for children can be read by adults
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Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.
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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.
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It's bad enough wasting time without killing it.
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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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Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going.
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...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.
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Many of the things which can never be, often are.
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I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.
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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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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.
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But just because you can never reach it, doesn’t mean that it’s not worth looking for.
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If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.
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There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction.
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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.
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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.
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...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.
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Since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.
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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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And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.
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I write best in the morning, and I can only write for about half a day, that's about it.
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Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet.
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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.
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Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.