Garrison Keillor Quotes

Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.

A book is a gift you can open again and again.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.

I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

When in doubt, look intelligent.

You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories.

Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.

A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded gun on your coffee table- There's nothing wrong with them, but it's hard to stop thinking about.

One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life. People who don't read are trapped in a mine shaft, even if they think the sun is shining.

Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is.

The French have a new president, the British will soon have a new P.M., and we envy them as we endure the endless wait for this small dim man to go back to Texas and resume his life.

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that.

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.

One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life....

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

That's the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

Life is unjust and this is what makes it so beautiful. Every day is a gift. Be brave and take hold of it.

Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn.

The most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.

I've seen the truth, and it makes no sense.

They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.

Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head. ~Garrison Keillor

It is a sin to believe evil of others but it is seldom a mistake.

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

When you wage war on the public schools, you're attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You're not a conservative, you're a vandal.

Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.

We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.

If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and fire them all off, wouldn't you?

There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.

The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out his nose.

Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye, and deny it.

My generation was secretive, brooding, ambitious, show-offy, and this generation is congenial. Totally. I imagine them walking around with GPS chips that notify them when a friend is in the vicinity, and their GPSes guide them to each other in clipped electronic lady voices and they sit down side by side in a coffee shop and text-message each other while checking their e-mail and hopping and skipping around Facebook to see who has posted pictures of their weekend.

Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don't put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.

I was afraid you had deceased,' he said. 'Or gotten engrossed in a long book.

That’s what happens when you’re angry at people. You make them part of your life.” —Garrison Keillor In

Some people have a love of their fellow man in their hearts, and others require a light anesthetic.

He was admired for never being at a loss for words and never wasting any either.

I have taken so many wrong turns and been so careless with precious things and managed to lose, or break, or leave out in the rain so much that I loved.

The Gospel is meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Marrying for sex is like flying to London for the free peanuts and pretzels. It's not the point of the thing, is it?

It's important for survival that children have their own experiences, the kind they learn from. The kind their parents arrange for are not as useful. Good parents are the hardest to get rid of.

Travel is the art form available to Everyman. You sit in the coffee shop in a strange city and nobody knows who you are, or cares, and so you shed your checkered past and your motley credentials and you face the day unarmed ... And onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we've been and the heroes we were.

Computers can never completely replace humans. They may become capable of artificial intelligence, but they will never master real stupidity.

You're such a big liar you gotta get your neighbor to call your dog.

The rich can afford to be progressive. Poor people have reason to be afraid of the future.

IMPORTANT Book reading is a solitary and sedentary pursuit, and those who do are cautioned that a book should be used as an integral part of a well-rounded life, including a daily regimen of rigorous physical exercise, rewarding personal relationships, and sensible low-fat diet. A book should not be used a as a substitute or an excuse.

Just because we're fictional characters doesn't mean you can pick us up and move us anywhere you want.--the people of Lake Woebegon

Never say anything bad about a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. By then he’s a mile away, you’ve got his shoes, and you can say whatever you want to.

A good newspaper is never good enough, but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever.

A person cannot coast along in old destructive habits year after year and accept whatever comes along. A person must stand up on her own two legs and walk. Get off the bus and go get on another. Climb out of the ditch and cross the road. Find the road that s where you want to go. ... The only sermon that counts is the one that is formed by our actions. She would quit drinking and thereby show Kyle life is what you make it. A person can grab hold of her life and change things for the better. This happens all the time. We are not chips of wood drifting down the stream of time. We have oars.

When NASA started sending up astronauts, they discovered that ballpoint pens don’t work in zero gravity. So they spent twelve million dollars and more than a decade developing a pen that writes under any condition, on almost every surface. The Russians used a pencil.

Hurry up! Do it – get it done. You got work to do. Don’t put this off and don’t take the long view. Life is today and tomorrow, and if you are lucky, may be next week.

Demagogues thrive in dim light.

And then I stand in front of God's Throne squinting up at His blazing glory and He says, 'You had your opportunities, boy. But did you listen? No. You went on heedlesly reading that garbagey magazine with pictures of naked girls in it. How juvenile! I gave geese more sense than that.' Please, God. I'm only fourteen years old. A teenager. Have mercy. Be loving. I was,' says God. 'For eons. And look at what it got me. You.' God turns in disgust, just the way Daddy does. 'Sorry, but I'm the Creator. I take it personally. There are slugs and bugs and night-crawlers I feel better about having created - I mean, there are sparrows - I've got my eye on one right now. Is that sparrow consumed with lust? No. He mates in the spring and that's the end of it. Consider the lilies. Do they think about lily tits all the time? No. They look not and they lust not, and yet I say unto you that you will never be half as attractive as they. Therefore, I say unto you, think not about peckers and boobs and all that nonsense and your Heavenly Father will see that you meet a good woman and marry her, just as I do for the sparrow and walleye - yea verily, even the night-crawler and the eelpout. But I've told you this over and over for nineteen centuries. And now, verily, it's too late. Time's up, buster. Lights out! Game's over!

I longed for the pitter-patter of little feet, so I got a dog. It’s cheaper, and you get more feet.

It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.

If you can't read a simple goddam sign and follow one simple goddam instruction then get your fat butt the hell out of here.

I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

Did you know that half of all people are below average?

Lutherans don't hold bingo games in the church basement. Lutherans are against fun in general, which is why for them, birth control has never been a big issue.

Beauty isn’t worth thinking about. What’s important is your mind. You don’t want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.” —Garrison Keillor, American humorist

One day we came home from some errands to find a grocery sack of [zucchini] hanging on our mailbox. The perpetrator, of course, was nowhere in sight ... Garrison Keillor says July is the only time of year when country people lock our cars in the church parking lot, so people won't put squash on the front seat. I used to think that was a joke ... It's a relaxed atmosphere in our little town, plus our neighbors keep an eye out and will, if asked, tell us the make and model of every vehicle that ever enters the lane to our farm. So the family was a bit surprised when I started double-checking the security of doors and gates any time we all were about to leave the premises. "Do I have to explain the obvious?" I asked impatiently. "Somebody might break in and put zucchini in our house.

My God, rich people have the time to praise You if they want to, but the poor people are so busy, accept their work as praise because, my God, they don’t have time for everything.

The living wander away, we don’t hear from them for months, years—but the dead move in with us to stay.

Years ago, manhood was an opportunity for achievement, now it is a problem to be overcome.

Free enterprise runs on self interest. This is socialism and it runs on loyalty . . . if people were going to live by comparison shopping, the town would go bust . . . If you live there you have to take it as a whole. That's loyalty.

What would people think?' Jesus said that people think all sorts of things. The human mind is like a cloud of gnats. Constant motion. That's why you have to look at the heart. 'Oh,' said Grandpa.

... you are never so smart again in a language learned in middle age nor so romantic, brave or kind.

Sometimes I think I understand everything—then I regain consciousness.

How many consultants does it take to change a lightbulb? I’ll have an estimate for you a week from Monday.

I feel like a blind man searching a dark room for a pair of black socks that aren’t there.

Don't worry about the past and don't try to figure out the future

I used to think that kid might become a preacher. Now I don't see how he's going to stay out of prison. Nobody in this family ever went to prison for sex crimes. He'd be the first." Yes," says Jesus, "you never know about these things." He and Grandpa are drinking cups of coffee and eating ginger snaps. Grandpa says, "When are you planning to return to earth?" Soon as I finish this coffee," say Jesus. "Pretty good, isn't it.

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known

The drag queen walks into a Catholic church as the priest is coming down the aisle swinging the incense pot. And he says to the priest, “Oh, honey, I love your dress, but did you know your handbag’s on fire?

How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? How many therapists do you think it takes to change a lightbulb?

How many pessimists does it take to change a lightbulb? Never mind. Nobody would get the joke anyway.

What’s another word for “thesaurus”?

Woman: Did you know that women are smarter than men? Man: No, I didn’t. Woman: See what I mean?

My own life would make a pretty dull story, I think, and I envy him as I drive to work on a cold Minnesota morning across the Mississippi River with its coal barges still struggling upstream like so many of us nowadays.

Do you think it’s right for Christians to use the names of pagan gods for the days of the week?

They did not weave their lives around yours. They had their own lives, which were mysterious to you.

You young people learned spelling by the ‘Close Enough’ method.

Couldn't dance because it would awaken carnal desire, which in my case was not only awake, it was dressed and down on the corner waiting for the bus.

Too many of my fellow Christians voted for selfishness and for degradation of the beautiful world God created. I guess they figured that by the time the planet was a smoky wasteland, they’d be nice and comfy in heaven, so wotthehell.

By God, no matter what Republicans say, the people of this country really do care about each other. We are not a cold people. By God, when John F. Kennedy said, “Ask what you can do for your country,” he spoke to this country’s heart and conscience.

What liberals must conserve is the middle class: the stable family who can afford to enjoy music and theater and take the kids to Europe someday and put money in the collection plate and save for college and keep up the home and be secure against catastrophe. This family has taken big hits in payroll taxes and loss of buying power and a certain suppressed panic about job security.

I can see how I could write a bold account of myself as a passionate man who rose from humble beginnings to cut a wide swath in the world, whose crimes along the way might be written off to extravagance and love and art, and could even almost believe some of it myself on certain days after the sun went down if I’d had a snort or two and was in Los Angeles and it was February and I was twenty-four, but I find a truer account in the Herald-Star, where it says: “Mr. Gary Keillor visited at the home of Al and Florence Crandall on Monday and after lunch returned to St. Paul, where he is currently employed in the radio show business… Lunch was fried chicken with gravy and creamed peas”.

WE DEMOCRATS are deeply flawed people, but we do stick to our guns, and believe in decency and public spiritedness and have refused to hitch our wagon to yahooism and intolerance and have supported government as a necessary force for good to “establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty . . .

James Brown went to the pearly gates and met St. Peter who took him to a room where Jerry Garcia was playing and Jimi Hendricks and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. James Brown says, “I was worried maybe I was going to hell, but I guess not.” Jerry Garcia says “You think this is heaven?” Just then Lawrence Welk walked in and says “All right, one more time. ‘The Anniversary Waltz.’ And a one and a two and a one, two, three…

Three people were going to the guillotine. The first was a lawyer, who was led to the platform, blindfolded, and had his head put on the block. The executioner pulled the lanyard, but nothing happened. To avoid a messy lawsuit, the authorities allowed the lawyer to go free. The next man to the guillotine was a priest. They put his head on the block and pulled the lanyard, but nothing happened. The blade didn’t come down. They thought it must have been divine intervention, so they let the priest go. The third man to the guillotine was an engineer. He waived his right to a blindfold, so they led him to the guillotine and put his head on the block. As he lay there, he said, “Hey, wait. I think I see your problem.

In TIME June 7, 2010 On the sustainability of the publishing industry, in the Chicago Tribune: "I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numbers.... The future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $175." - 5/26/10

The top 1% holds nearly half of the financial wealth, the greatest concentration of wealth of any industrialized nation, more concentrated than at any time since the Depression. In 1980, on average, CEOs earned 42 times the salary of the average worker, and these days they earn about 476 times that salary. Since 1980, the rich have been getting richer fast and furiously and hard-working people in the middle are sliding down the greasy slope who never imagined this could happen to them. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humankind has survived this.

People complain about the obscurity of poetry, especially if they're assigned to write about it, but actually poetry is rather straightforward compared to ordinary conversation with people you don't know well which tends to be jumpy repartee, crooked, coded, allusive to no effect, firmly repressed, locked up in irony, steadfastly refusing to share genuine experience--think of conversation at office parties or conversation between teenage children and parents, or between teenagers themselves, or between men, or between bitter spouces: rarely in ordinary conversation do people speak from the heart and mean what they say. How often in the past week did anyone offer you something from the heart? It's there in poetry. Forget everything you ever read about poetry, it doesn't matter--poetry is the last preserve of honest speech and the outspoken heart. All that I wrote about it as a grad student I hereby recant and abjure--all that matters about poetry to me is directness and clarity and truthfulness. All that is twittery and lit'ry: no thanks, pal. A person could perish of entertainment, especially comedy, so much of it casually nihilistic, hateful, glittering, cold, and in the end clueless. People in nusing homes die watching late-night television and if I were one of them, I'd be grateful when the darkness descends. Thank God if the pastor comes and offers a psalm and a prayer, and they can attain a glimmer of clarity at the end.