Garrison 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.

She's a stupid-' 'Be careful what you say next.' Daemon's voice was low but carried. 'Because what you don't know and what you can't possibly understand will get a bolt of light in your face.' My eyes widened, as did pretty much everyone's in the room. Ash swallowed thickly and turned her cheek, letting her blonde hair cover her face. 'Daemon,' Mr Garrison said, stepping forward. 'Threatening one of your own for her? I didn't expect this from you.

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....

We're all assholes," Lo tells Garrison. "But one day, you'll meet an asshole that pushes you to be a better person. Those are the ones that stick with you.

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.

Lately I can't help wanting us to be like other people. For example, if I were a smoker, you'd lift a match to the cigarette just as I put it between my lips. It's never been like that between us: none of that easy chemistry, no quick, half automatic flares. Everything between us had to be learned. Saturday finds me brooding behind my book, all my fantasies of seduction run up against the rocks. Tell me again why you don't like sex in the afternoon? No, don't tell me-- I'll never understand you never understand us, America's strangest loving couple: they never drink a bottle of wine together and rarely look at each other. Into each other's eyes, I mean.

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.

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?

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.

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.

I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.

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

With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

Mass culture is enlightenment in reverse. Its goal is precisely to wipe out that last little garrison of human autonomy.

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.

You won't get much with only ten men," Will said, in a reasonable tone of voice. Gundar snorted angrily. "Ten? I've got twenty-seven men behind me!" There was an angry growl of assent from his men-although Ulf didn't join in, Gundar noticed. This time, when the Ranger spoke, there was no trace of the pleasant, reasonable tone. Instead, the voice was hard and cold. "You haven't reached the castle yet," Will said. "I've got twenty-three arrows in my quiver still, and a further dozen in my packsaddle. And you've got several kilometers to go-all within bowshot of the trees there. Bad shot as I am, I should be able to account for more than half your men. Then you'll be facing the garrison with just ten men.

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.

Be faithful, be vigilant, be untiring in your efforts to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. Come what may - cost what it may - inscribe on the banner which you unfurl to the breeze, as your religious and political motto - "NO COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY! NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS

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.

The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.

Garrison Abbey is good. He just has a bad reputation.

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.

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

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

Halt," said Horace, "I've been thinking..." Halt and Will exchanged an amused glance. "Always a dangerous pastime," they chorused. For many years, it had been Halt's unfailing response when Will had made the same statement. Horace waited patiently while they had their moment of fun, then continued. "Yes, yes. I know. But seriously, as we said last night, Macindaw isn't so far away from here..." "And?" Halt asked, seeing how Horace had left the statement hanging. "Well, there's a garrison there and it might not be a b ad idea for one of to go fetch some reinforcements. It wouldn't hurt to have a dozen knights and men-at-arms to back us up when we run into Tennyson." But Halt was already shaking his head. "Two problems, Horace. It'd take too long for one of us to get there, explain it all and mobilize a force. And even if we could do it quickly, I don't think we'd want a bunch of knights blundering around the countryside, crashing through the bracken, making noise and getting noticed." He realized that statement had been a little tactless. "No offense, Horace. Present company excepted, of course.

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

Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.

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.

Mr. Garrison glanced at Daemon, frowning. "It's the fact that the energy was so strong it disrupted a satellite's signal and they weren't able to snap any pictures of the event. Nothing like that has ever happened before." Daemon kept his expression blank. "I guess I'm just that awesome.

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

For you she learned to wear a short black slip and red lipstick, how to order a glass of red wine and finish it. She learned to reach out as if to touch your arm and then not touch it, changing the subject. Didn't you think, she'd begin, or Weren't you sorry. . . . To call your best friends by their schoolboy names and give them kisses good-bye, to look away when they say Your wife! So your confidence grows. She doesn't ask what you want because she knows. Isn't that what you think? When actually she was only waiting to be told Take off your dress--- to be stunned, and then do this, never rehearsed, but perfectly obvious: in one motion up, over, and gone, the X of her arms crossing and uncrossing, her face flashing away from you in the fabric so that you couldn't say if she was appearing or disappearing.

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

I am in earnest I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not retreat a single inch And I will be heard.

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.

Used to be he was my heart's desire. His forthright gaze, his expert hands: I'd lie on the couch with my eyes closed just thinking about it. Never about the fact that everything changes, that even this, my best passion, would not be immune. No, I would bask on in an eternal daydream of the hands finding me, the gaze like a winding stair coaxing me down. . . . Until I caught a glimpse of something in the mirror: silly girl in her lingerie, dancing with the furniture-- a hot little bundle, flush with cliches. Into that pair of too-bright eyes I looked and saw myself. And something else: he would never look that way.

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.

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.

Demagogues thrive in dim light.

Nobody gives you respect in this life. You must take it, you must earn it, and then you must hold it sacred, because no matter how hard respect is to attain, it can be lost in an instant." I nodded my head toward the garrison. "Go get it, Roden. People won't follow a leader who doesn't know where he's going. Show them what you do.

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!

You still trying to save me, Mallory?" Ty asked quietly. Her heart was hammering so loud she couldn't hear herself talk. "I can't seem to help myself." "I don't need saving." No. No, he sure didn't. He was strong and capable, and more than able to take care of himself. "What do you need?" "You," he said simply. "Only you.

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.

I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.

The standard of matrimony is erected by affection and purity, and does not depend upon the height, or bulk, or color, or wealth, or poverty of individuals. Water will seek its level; nature will have free course; and heart will answer to heart.

I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

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.

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns. Sometimes we hide the very core of our existence because we fear the judgment of others. Sometimes the universe shifts and we are provided with a brief moment to begin anew. These moments allow us to become fearless and let our perfectly created souls shine.

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.

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.

It is not as though we have not heard of you, Captain Laurence. We have all had a great many arguments, whether your aid would not be too expensive, to begin with.” “Sir,” Laurence said, now baffled, “I beg your pardon; however should you know me from Adam?” “If the world had not heard of you, after your adventure at Gdansk,” Kutuzov said, meaning Danzig, where they had rescued the garrison from the wreck of the Prussian campaign, “or after the plague, we should certainly have heard of you after Brazil. Where you go, you leave half the world overturned behind you. You are more dangerous than Bonaparte in your own way, you and that beast of yours.

So I guess that the next time I make a date with a concussed guy, I should pin a note to his collar so he doesn't forget." "Good plan." His hand was next to hers on the table. He let his thumb glide over her fingers, a small, almost casual touch that sent a shudder through her. "I'm sorry I forgot our date.

To say that everything in the bible is to be believed , simply because it is found in that volume, is equally absurd and pernicious... To discard a portion of scripture is not necessarily to reject the truth, but may be the highest evidence that one can give of his love of truth.

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.

I have attended church-service in the garrisons, and tried hard...to join in the prayers...but never could raise within me the solemn feelings and true affection that I feel when alone with God in the forest. There I seem to stand face to face with my Master; all around me is fresh and beautiful, as it came from His hand; and there is no nicety or doctrine to chill the feelings. No no; the woods are the true temple after all, for there the thoughts are free to mount higher even than the clouds.

She had time to make room for him in her closet. The cat had time to get used to him. They had all the time they needed, because he'd told her he was hers, and he was a man of his word. "I've got all I need," she told him. He leaned down and kissed her again, then stroked a finger over her temple, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I want you to know," he said. "That you're the best choice I ever made." "No regrets?" "No regrets.

He shouldn't be inclined. Mallory Quinn was sweet, warm, and caring. She was a white picket fence and two-point-four kids. She was a diamond ring. She was someone's keeper. Not his. Never his. He didn't do keepers. And yet in that beat, with her mouth close to his, a smile in her eyes, he... ached. He ached and yearned for something. Someone. He wanted to wrap his arms around a woman, this woman, and lose himself in her.

It was not like everyone had said. Not like being needed, or needing; not desperate; it did not whisper that I'd come to harm. I didn't lose my head. No, I was not going to leap from a great height and flap my wings. It was in fact the opposite of flying: it contained the wish to be toppled, to be on the floor, the ground, anywhere I might lie down. . . . On my back, and you on me.

Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-Three She has no head for politics, craves good jewelry, trusts too readily, marries too early. Then one by one she sends away her friends and stands apart, smug sapphire, her answer to everything a slender zero, a silent shrug--and every day still hears me say she'll never be pretty. Instead she reads novels, instead her belt matches her shoes. She is master of the condolence letter, and knows how to please a man with her mouth: Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set, hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red, nor the glossy black her younger sister has, the little raven I loved best.

Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.

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”.

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.