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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.

-Garrison Keillor

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A Person Cannot Coast

Garrison Keillor

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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.

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He Was Admired For Never Being At A Loss For Words And Never Wasting Any Either.

A Loss For Words

Nothing You Do For Children Is Ever Wasted. They Seem Not To Notice Us, Hovering, Averting Our Eyes, And They Seldom Offer Thanks, But What We Do For Them Is Never Wasted.

Majestic Doesn't Appeal To Us. We [americans] Like The Grand Canyon Better With Clarence And Arlene Parked In Front Of It, Smiling.

Most Men Are Prisoners At Best, Who Some Strong Habit Every Drag About Like Chain And Ball.

We Are Great Mysteries. No Matter What We Imagine We May Know, Even For All The Facts We Might Gather, We Don't Know Each Other. Never Do, Probably Never Will. Our Reputations Depend On The Opinions Of The Ill Informed. We All Have Better Moments Than Anybody Ever Knows, And So Do All The Others. We Are, Each One Of Us, Books That Are Read By Critics Who Only Glanced At The Chapter Headings And The Jacket Flap. Each One Of Us Is A Secret, And On That Basis We Ought To Treat Each Other With The Deepest Respect.

I Want To Resume The Life Of A Shy Person.

Sometimes There Is Nothing You Can Do, And In Those Times, You Must Do Something Anyway.

Give Up Your Good 'christian' Life And Follow Jesus

Bravery And Adventure! That's The Ticket! Don't Sit And Gather Moss. Get Up, Get Out, Do What You Dream Of Doing, And If It Doesn't Work, It Doesn't Work, And You Don't Need To Made That Particular Mistake Again, But At Least You Won't Get Old Wondering What If You Had.

Some Of Us Have A Relentless Urge To Attempt What We Can Never Be Good At And Neglect Our True Calling.

An Interesting Thing About New York City Is That The Subways Run Through The Sewers.

Vacation Cruises Are Advertised As Luxurious Journeys To Exotic Places, But A Chief Pleasure Is The Reading Of Books ... . On Steamer Chairs Topside Or Poolside, In The Lounges, Everywhere You See Men And Women With Their Noses In Books, Devouring Them For Hours.

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.

It Is More Worthy In The Eyes Of God . . . If A Writer Makes Three Pages Sharp And Funny About The Lives Of Geese Than To Make Three Hundred Fat And Flabby About God Or The American People.

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.

When Writing Loses Touch With The Beautiful Surface Of The World, It Loses Its Way. You Always Want To Be In Touch With How Things Look And What People Say And What They Call Their Dogs.

It's Better To Be Burnished With Use Than Rusty With Principle.

Scripture Doesn't Promise That God Will Remove Temptation, Only That You'll Be Given Strength To Withstand It.

Have Interesting Failures.... If You Need To Have A Personal Crisis Have It Now. Don't Wait Until Midlife, When It Will Take Longer To Resolve.... Don't Pity Yourselves. Lighten Up. Seek People With A Sense Of Humor. Avoid Humorless People-and Do Not Marry One, For God's Sake.

..people (in Minnesota) Avoid Stupidity When Possible, Not Wanting To Be A $10 Haircut On A 50 Cent Head.

Be Well, Do Good Work, And Keep In Touch.

A Person Does Feel Sheepish Picking On Journalists, A Class Already So Richly Despised That If A Planeload Of Them Crashed In Flames, Most People Would Smile From Pure Reflex.

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.

The Reason To Retire Is To Try To Avoid Embarrassment; You Ought To Do It Before People Are Dropping Big Hints. You Want To Be The First To Come Up With The Idea. You Don't Want To Wait Until You Trip And Fall Off The Stage.

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.

I Am A Cheerful Man, Even In The Dark, And It's All Thanks To A Good Lutheran Mother. . . . Mother Was Well Composed, A True Lutheran, And Taught Me To Cheer Up, Make Yourself Useful, Mind Your Manners, And Above All, Don't Feel Sorry For Yourself.

...opening Up A Newspaper Is The Key To Looking Classy And Smart. Never Mind The Bronze-plated Stuff About The Role Of The Press In A Democracy - A Newspaper, Kiddo, Is About Style.

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 Believe In Looking Reality Straight In The Eye And Denying It.

Thank You, Dear God, For This Good Life And Forgive Us If We Do Not Love It Enough. Thank You For The Rain. And For The Chance To Wake Up In Three Hours And Go Fishing: I Thank You For That Now, Because I Won't Feel So Thankful Then.

When You're Old You Feast On Your Memories, And If You Spend Too Much Time On Exercise, You May Get Old And Not Have Many.

You Get Old And You Realize There Are No Answers, Just Stories.

You Can Go Your Whole Life And Not Need Math Or Physics For A Minute, But The Ability To Tell A Joke Is Always Handy.

I Hiked Around Town, The Air Sweet And Dry, And Was Sort Of Overwhelmed By The Perfection Of It -- The Old Courthouse, The Train Depot, Mount [jumbo] And Mount Sentinel Rising Up, The Neon Bars, The Funky Festivity Of A College Town .

America Of The Future Will Be All Malls Connected By Interstates. All Because Your Parents No Longer Can Their Own Tomatoes.

Secret Of Life Is To Go Through Something Harrowing That Doesnt Kill You...and To Love One Woman For The Rest Of Your Life.

Rest Of Your Life

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.

A Cruise Ship Is A Floating Town Of Lazy People.

Jesus Said The Meek Would Inherit The Earth, But So Far All We've Gotten Is Minnesota And North Dakota.

Bad Things Don't Happen To Writers; It's All Material.

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.

The Socially Redeeming Aspect Of Golf Lies In The Vast Number Of Lawyers And Bankers And Managers Who Play It, And When You Think Of The Damage They Would Do If They Were At The Job Instead, You Can See Why Golf Courses Are A Wise Investment For Any Municipality.

Sometimes You Have To Look Reality In The Eye, And Deny It.

It Was A Pleasure To Have Somebody Else Be The Boss. It Wouldn't Have Been Nearly As Much Fun Any Other Way. He's Been Around And Made A Lot Of Movies And He's A Great Straightforward Person To Work For. And It Was A Pleasure To See Other People To Pick Up Characters That You've Sketched Out Loosely On Paper And Make Them Into Something Fascinating.

I Think There's A Lot Of Power In Listening To One Person Talking To You. And This Should Never Be Underestimated.one Person Sitting And Talking To You And, You're Pulled In, In Ways That Technology And Art And All Cannot.

A Lovely Thing About Christmas Is That It's Compulsory, Like A Thunderstorm, And We All Go Through It Together.

Pumpkin Pie Is A Living Symbol Of Mediocrity. The Best Pumpkin Pie You Ever Ate Wasn't All That Much Different From The Worst Pumpkin Pie You Ever Ate.

When You're In Your 20s, Your 30s, Even, You Have - At Least, I Had - Vast Ambitions, And You Sit Around Mooning About These Things, And You're Depressed, Because You Haven't Done Them. And It Takes You A Long Time To Come To The Realization That If You Can't Be John Updike, Well, Then, You Can't.

God Plays A Lot Of Jokes On Us To Get Our Attention.

March Is The Month God Created To Show People Who Don't Drink What A Hangover Is Like.

Anyone Who Thinks Sitting In Church Can Make You A Christian Must Also Think That Sitting In A Garage Can Make You A Car.

Take Care Of Your Friends. Because There Will Come A Time When You'll Be No Good To Anyone, And The Only Reason For People To Talk To You Will Be Sheer Habit.

In Romance, As In Life, You Only Learn When You're Losing.

Being Lutheran, Mother Believed That Self-pity Is A Deadly Sin And So Is Nostalgia, And She Had No Time For Either

It Is A Sin To Believe Evil Of Others But It Is Seldom A Mistake.

I Talk In Subjects And Verbs, And Sort Of Wind Around In Concentric Circles Until I Get Far Enough Away From The Beginning So That I Can Call It The End, And It Ends.

The Greatness Of America Is That It Produces Exuberant Geniuses Like Louis Armstrong And Fred Astaire And Leonard Bernstein. We Are Meant To Be A Jazzy People Who Talk Big And Jump On The Table And Dance; We Aren't Supposed To Be Dopey And Glum And Brood Over Old Injuries.

I Think The Most Un-american Thing You Can Say Is, 'you Can't Say That.'

Where I'm From We Don't Trust Paper. Wealth Is What's Here On The Premises. If I Open A Cupboard And See, Say, Thirty Cans Of Tomato Sauce And A Five-pound Bag Of Rice, I Get A Little Thrill Of Well-being - Much More So Than If I Take A Look At The Quarterly Dividend Report From My Mutual Fund.

Love Has The Power To Rescue Us And Not Let Go, Otherwise It Isn't Love

I Remember When I Switched From Christmas To Sex As The Secret Of Happiness.

Ha! Easy For Nuns To Talk About Giving Up Things. That's What They Do For A Living.

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.

I Think That If Writers Are Tempted To Do Other Things, They Ought To Go Do Other Things. They Should Not Write If They Don't Feel Like It. I Say This As A Competitor. I Am Not Interested In Encouraging People Who Are In Competition With Me.

People Always Are Encouraging About A Terrible Loss, So That Sometimes The Loser Would Like To Strangle Them.

Face It: A Nation That Maintains A 72% Approval Rating On George W. Bush Is A Nation With A Very Loose Grip On Reality.

Approval Rating

As For Kissing On The First Date, You Should Never Date Someone Whom You Would Not Wish To Kiss Immediately.

We Thank You [the Soldiers Recently Returned From The Middle East] For Your Service.

That's Why God Created Marriage, So People Wouldn't Have To Fight With Strangers.

The Mass Of Men Lead Lives Of Shallow Happiness; The Superior Man Exults In His Gloom.

I'm Not Busy... A Woman With Three Children Under The Age Of 10 Wouldn't Think My Schedule Looked So Busy.

I Love New York, And I'm Drawn To A Certain Intensity Of Life, But I've Just Never Felt Like I Want To Escape From The Midwest. A Writer Lives A Great Deal In His Own Head, And So One Intuitively Finds Places Where Your Head Is More Clear. New York For Me Is One Of Those Places.

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.

I Think If The Church Put In Half The Time On Covetousness That It Does On Lust, This Would Be A Better World For All Of Us.

It?s A Beautiful Descent In A 737, Into The Bitterroot Valley, Following The Clark Fork River, On A Perfect Golden Autumn Day .

All Solutions Are Temporary, So Why Not Go For Duct Tape?

People In Cars Cause Accidents And Accidents In Cars Cause People.

One Day Donald Trump Will Discover That He Is Owned By Lutheran Brotherhood And Must Re Negotiate His Debt Load With A Committee Of Silent Norwegians Who Dont Understand Why Anyone Would Pay More Than $120.00 For A Suit.

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.

Never Insult A Writer. You May Find Yourself Immortalized In Ways You May Not Appreciate.

Finding Yourself

You'd Learn More About The World By Lying On The Couch And Drinking Gin Out Of A Bottle Than By Watching The News.

Don't Pour The Oil Directly Into My Navel, Pour It On My Sternum And Let It Run Down Into My Navel, You Ignorant Peasant.

They Say Such Nice Things About People At Their Funerals That It Makes Me Sad That I'm Going To Miss Mine By Just A Few Days.

Dogs Don't Lie And Why Should I? Strangers Come They Growl And Bark, They Know Their Loved Ones In The Dark, Now Let Me, By Night Or Day, Be Just As Full Of Truth As They.

I Was An English Major At The University Of Minnesota, And I Was Very Shy, Which Many People Misinterpreted As Intelligence. On The Basis Of That Wrong Impression, I Became The Editor Of The Campus Literary Magazine.

My Ancestors Were Puritans From England. They Arrived Here In 1648 In The Hope Of Finding Greater Restrictions Than Were Permissible Under English Law At That Time.

People Do What They Are Told Not To Do. It Happens Time And Time Again. Here On The Frozen Tundra, It Is Known As The Tongue On The Frozen Pump Handle Principle.

The Highlight Of My Childhood Was Making My Brother Laugh So Hard That Food Came Out Of His Nose.

I Was Brought Up Imagining That Cream Rises To The Top, Merit Wins Out, The Race Is To The Swift And Riches To Men Of Understanding, But It Ain't Necessarily So. The Swift Stand A Better Chance If They Are Also Beautiful.

Life Is Continuous. Life Never Stops. We Come To The Really Great Questions And Before We Can Answer Them, Life Has Moved On To Something Else.

Cats Are Intended To Teach Us That Not Everything In Nature Has A Function.

Being An English Major Prepares You For Impersonating Authority.

Roy Blount's Stuff Makes Me Laugh So Hard, Sometimes I Have To Go Sit In A Room And Shut The Door

The Problem With Paradise Is That It's Temporary: You Don't Belong Here And The Neighbors Are Nobody You Care To Know, So It's Only Blissful For A Week Or So.

You Don't Want To Get That Sort Of Sound In Your Writing That Boing That Gives You Away.

Humor, A Good Sense Of It, Is To Americans What Manhood Is To Spaniards, And We Will Go To Great Lengths To Prove It. Experiments With Laboratory Rats Have Shown That, If One Psychologist In The Room Laughs At Something A Rat Does, All Of The Other Psychologists Will Laugh Equally. Nobody Wants To Be Left Holding The Joke.

Nothing That Readers Say Or Do Strikes Me As A Nuisance. Anyone Who Cracks Open A Book Of Mine Is, To Me, A Gem.

I Hear A Little Firecracker Go Off When You Come Up With A Good Rhyme.

The Relationship Between Truth And A Newspaper Is Like The Relationship Between The Color Green And The Number Seven. Occasionally You Will See The Number Seven Written In Green, But You Learn Not To Expect This.

Some People Have A Love Of Their Fellow Man In Their Hearts, And Others Require A Light Anesthetic.

Intelligence Is Like Four-wheel Drive. It Only Allows You To Get Stuck In More Remote Places.

Enough. Man Is Capable Of Reform Once Presented With The Facts, And The Fact Is That Bottling Water And Shipping It Is A Big Waste Of Fuel, So Stop Already.

If The Marriage Needs Help, The Answer Almost Always Is Have More Fun. Drop Your List Of Grievances And Go Ride A Roller Coaster.

Where I Come From, When A Catholic Marries A Lutheran It Is Considered The First Step On The Road To Minneapolis.

Winter: It's Not Just A Season, It's Who We Are.

Writing Is The Main Gig And Teaching And Performing Are Sidelines, An Excuse For Not Writing More. Working On A Novel And On An Opera Make Me Seriously Want To Retire And Find A Volunteer Job As A Docent At The Zoo Explaining To Schoolchildren Where Frogs Go In The Winter.

Ralph Stanley Is Like An Uncle To Us And Now That All My Uncles Are Gone, Ralph's Singing Is Even More Precious. This Album Of Classic Folk Songs Is One Of His Best.

A Romp In The Hay Lingers Like The First Line Of A Song, But Your True Love Is The One You Make A Life With And Write More Than A Line About, You Write A Whole Book.

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.

Second Violins Can Play A Concerto Perfectly If They're In Their Own Home And Nobody's There.

Minnesota Is A State Of Public-spirited And Polite People, Where You Can Get A Good Cappucino And Eat Thai Food And Find Any Book You Want And Yet Live On A Quiet Tree-lined Street With A Backyard And Send Your Kids To Public School. When A State This Good Hits The Jackpot, It Can Only Be An Inspiration To Everybody.

I Like To Sing And It's Just Really Fun To Sing, And I Don't Get Too Much. And At My House I'm Not Allowed To Because, You Know, Your Children Can't Stand It When You Sing At Home.

When The New Yorker Turned Down Work, They Turned It Down In Such An Elaborately Gentlemanly Way Making Apologies For Their Own Shortsightedness. Undoubtedly It Was Their Fault But Somehow For Some Reason This Fell Short Of The Remarkably High Standard That You By Your Own Work Have Set For Yourself. They Had A Way Of Rejecting My Work That Made Me Feel Sorry For Them Somehow.

Sometimes You Have To Avoid Mentioning Things Because People's Feelings Are Tender.

You Now Have Learned Enough To See That Cats Are Much Like You And Me And Other People Whom We Find Possessed Of Various Types Of Mind. For Some Are Sane And Some Are Mad And Some Are Good And Some Are Bad And Some Are Better, Some Are Worse But All May Be Described In Verse.

It's Confidence; It Has To Be Something Good About Getting Old. One Of The Things Is That You Just Don't Stress About Some Stuff That Made You So Worried.

A Man Can't Eat Anger For Breakfast And Sleep With It At Night And Not Suffer Damage To His Soul.

I Think That You Are Only Obliged To Be A Humorist From The Age Of 18 Until You Turn 30. Past The Age Of 30 I Don't Think There Is Any Obligation To Be Clever At All.

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.

Easter Is So Disappointing. You Suffer All The Way Through Lent, And What Do You Get For It? A Ham.

Humor Needs To Come In Under Cover Of Darkness, In Disguise, And Surprise People.

A Boy Wrote Me Once To Say That He Loved It When The News From Lake Wobegon Came On The Radio Because It Meant That His Parents Stopped Arguing. That Was An Eye-opener For Me. You Work Hard To Polish Your Act And Then You Find Out That It Does People Good In Ways You Couldn't Predict.

English Is The Perfect Language For Preachers Because It Allows You To Talk Until You Think Of What To Say.

Life Is Unjust And This Is What Makes It So Beautiful. Every Day Is A Gift. Be Brave And Take Hold Of It.

We All Know You Can Get Aids From Sex, But Did You Know That You Can Get Sex From Aides?

The Thought Of People In This Day And Age Sitting Down To Listen To A Radio Variety Show On Saturday Evening Is Rather Implausible And Was Even More So In 1974 When We Started “a Prairie Home Companion.” Thank Goodness Minnesota Public Radio Was Too Poor To Afford Good Advice Or The Show Never Would've Got On The Air. We Only Did It Because We Knew It Would Be Fun To Do. It Was A Dumb Idea. I Wish I Knew How To Be That Dumb Again.

There Is Almost No Marital Problem That Can't Be Helped Enormously By Taking Off Your Clothes.

In Lake Wobegon, We Don't Forget Mistakes.

Age Doesn't Always Bring Wisdom. Sometimes Age Comes Alone.

I've Seen The Truth, And It Makes No Sense.

I Was Afraid You Had Deceased,' He Said. 'or Gotten Engrossed In A Long Book.

I've Wanted To Be A Writer Since I Was A Boy, Though It Seemed An Unlikely Outcome Since I Showed No Real Talent. But I Persevered And Eventually Found My Own Row To Hoe. Ignorance Of Other Writers' Work Keeps Me From Discouragement And I Am Less Well-read Than The Average Bus Driver.

Freedom Doesn't Mean Aimlessness. We Can't Just Sleepwalk Through Life.... Freedom Demands Structure.

The Party Of Lincoln And Liberty Was Transmogrified Into The Party Of Hairy-backed Swamp Developers And Corporate Shills, Faith-based Economists, Fundamentalist Bullies With Bibles, Christians Of Convenience, Freelance Racists, Misanthropic Frat Boys, Shrieking Midgets Of Am Radio, Tax Cheats, Nihilists In Golf Pants, Brownshirts In Pinstripes, Sweatshop Tycoons. ... Republicans: The No. 1 Reason The Rest Of The World Thinks We're Deaf, Dumb, And Dangerous.

I Don't Associate Work With Feelings Of Satisfaction. Rather, Guilt, Frustration, And Resentment Of People Who Write Better Than I Do.

Welcome To Lake Wobegon, Where All The Women Are Strong, All The Men Are Good-looking, And All The Children Are Above Average.

There Was A Price To Be Paid For Being Interested In Fiction And In Writing, Pushing My Family Away. Books And Authors Became My Family.

Girls . . . Were Allowed To Play In The House . . . And Boys Were Sent Outdoors. . . . Boys Ran Around In The Yard With Toy Guns Going Kksshh-kksshh, Fighting Wars For Made-up Reasons And Arguing About Who Was Dead, While Girls Stayed Inside And Played With Dolls, Creating Complex Family Groups And Learning How To Solve Problems Through Negotiation And Roleplaying. Which Gender Is Better Equipped, On The Whole, To Live An Adult Life, Would You Guess?

To The Cheater, There Is No Such Thing As Honesty, And To Republicans The Idea Of Serving The Public Good Is Counterfeit On The Face Of It They Never Felt Such An Urge, And Therefore It Must Not Exist.

The Fundamental Religion Of Most Of Mankind Is The Faith That God Has Revealed Himself To Us And Not To The Barbarians. Our Tribe Is The One God Chose And So If We Vanquish The Other Tribes And Rain Fire And Destruction On Them, We're Only Carrying Out God's Will.

Eating A Little Was Like Vomiting A Little, Just As Bad As A Lot.

I Feel It's So Hard For Young Actors; It's A Different World That They're Coming Up In; There's So Much Money To Be Made Off Of Their Personal Lives, And People Are Bound And Determined To Make That Money.

The Majority Of People Who Keel Over Dead At Concerts Are Killed By A Long Trumpet Passage.

Humor, A Good Sense Of It, Is To Americans What Manhood Is To Spaniards And We Will Go To Great Lengths To Prove It.

People Meet Writers And Are Bowled Over When The Writer Is Friendly To Them And Invites Them To His House For A Glass Of Wine Or To Shoot Up Heroin Or Whatever They Do, And They Talk Their Heads Off, And A Year Later It Comes Out In A Book, And There Follow Years Of Bitter And Fruitless Litigation, And That Is Why You Should Always Keep A Writer At Arm's Length.

Growing Up In A Place That Has Winter, You Learn To Avoid Self-pity. Winter Is Not A Personal Experience, Everybody Else Is Just As Cold As You, So You Shouldn't Complain About It Too Much. You Learn This As A Kid, Coming Home Crying From The Cold, And Mother Looks Down And Says, 'it's Only A Little Frostbite. You're Okay.' And Thus You Learn To Be Okay. What's Done Is Done. Get Over It. Drink Your Coffee. It's Not The Best You'll Ever Get But It's Good Enough.

Cleverness Is A Burden After That. You Are Supposed To Settle Down And Be A Good Person, Raise Your Children, And Be Good To Your Friends, Which You May Not Have Been Back When You Were Clever.

A Minister Has To Be Able To Read A Clock. At Noon, It's Time To Go Home And Turn Up The Pot Roast And Get The Peas Out Of The Freezer.

Even In A Time Of Elephantine Vanity And Greed, One Never Has To Look Far To See The Campfires Of Gentle People.

When You Come To Expect Humor Of People, You Will Never Get It.

Sing Your Song; Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down.

Liberalism Is Dead, So Dead That Democrats Have All Become Moderate Republicans, And The Heavy Hand Of Big Government Is Now Limp And Damp And Trembly.

Why Is Divorce So Expensive? Because It's Worth It!

Don't Worry About The Past And Don't Try To Solve The Future.

In The End, All Solutions Are Temporary.

To Your Left Is The Marina Where Several Senior Cabinet Officials Keep Luxury Yachts For Weekend Cruises On The Potomac. Some Of These Ships Are Up To 100 Feet In Length; The Presidential Yacht Is Over 200 Feet In Length, And Can Remain Submerged For Up To 3 Weeks.

Thank You, God, For This Good Life And Forgive Us If We Do Not Love It Enough.

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 Don't Have A Great Eye For Detail. I Leave Blanks In All Of My Stories. I Leave Out All Detail, Which Leaves The Reader To Fill In Something Better.

Wal-mart Is Going In And Slaughtering [small Towns] Just As We Once Killed The Buffalo.

I'm A Lucky Guy. I Get To Sit Around Every Day And Indulge In Make Believe And Get Paid For It.

When It Comes To Finding Available Men In Minnesota, The Odds Are Good, But The Goods Are Odd.

What Keeps Faith Cheerful Is The Extreme Persistence Of Gentleness And Humor. Gentleness Is Everywhere In Daily Life, A Sign That Faith Rules Through Ordinary Things: Through Cooking And Small Talk, Through Storytelling, Making Love, Fishing, Tending Animals And Sweet Corn And Flowers, Through Sports, Music, And Books, Raising Kids-all The Places Where The Gravy Soaks In And Grace Shines Through. Even In A Time Of Elephantine Vanity And Greed, One Never Has To Look Far To See The Campfires Of Gentle People. Lacking Any Other Purpose In Life, It Would Be Good Enough To Live For Their Sake.

... I Never Was One To Get Upset About A Few Scratches On A Motor Vehicle, It Is Meant To Be Used, Not Saved.

Humor Has To Surprise Us; Otherwise, It Isn't Funny. It's A Death Knell For A Writer To Be Labeled A Humorist Because Then It's Not A Surprise Anymore.

We Live A Pleasant Life Shopping At The Food Shoppe . . . Taking The Kids To The Weinery-beanery, . . . And Eating Bran Flakes . .. And Then, With No Warning, We Wake Up One Morning Stricken With Middle Age, Full Of Loneliness, Dumb, In Pain. Our Work Is Useless, Our Vocation Is Lost, And Nobody Cares About Us At All. This Is Not Bearable. In Despair, We Go Do Something Spectacularly Dumb, Like Run Away With Amber The Cocktail Waitress, And Suddenly All The Women In Our Life Look At Us With Unmitigated Disgust.

When In Doubt, Look Intelligent.

To Choose Norm Coleman Over Walter Mondale Is Like Going To A Great Steakhouse And Ordering The Tuna Sandwich.

This Is Democratic Bedrock: We Don't Let People Lie In The Ditch And Drive Past And Pretend Not To See Them Dying. Here On The Frozen Tundra Of Minnesota, If Your Neighbor's Car Won't Start, You Put On Your Parka And Get The Jumper Cables Out And Deliver The Sacred Spark That Starts Their Car. Everybody Knows This. The Logical Extension Of This Spirit Is Social Welfare And The Myriad Government Programs With Long Dry Names All Very Uninteresting To You Until You Suddenly Need One.

A Book Is A Gift You Can Open Again And Again.

Children Can Find Other Children To Be Pals. Children Need Fathers To Be Fathers.

We Have Nearly Complete Misunderstanding Between People Of Different Faiths In Lake Wobegon, And That's Probably One Reason Why We Get Along So Very Well. It's When You Are Trying To Convince Another Person To Think The Same Way That You Do That There Is Friction And Trouble Between People. But When You Feel That The Other Person Is Dumber Than Dirt, Too Dumb For Words - Why Waste Your Breath - You Get Along Pretty Well. There's No Bond Between People That's Quite So Strong As When People Each Feel Slightly Superior Towards The Other One.

I Thought A Prairie Home Companion Would Be An Interesting Thing To Do For A Summer Or So. Public Radio Was Just Seven Years Old In 1974. It Was A Tiny Organization In Which A Lot Of Things Got Started Simply Because There Was All This Time To Fill. If You Wanted To Do An Hour On Lithuanian Folk Dancing, You Probably Could Have Done It.

Before The World Was Made, When It Was Only Darkness And Mist And Waters, God Was Well Aware Of Lake Wobegon, My Family, Our House, And He Had Me All Sketched Out Down To What Size My Feet Would Be (big), Which Bike I Would Ride (schwinn), And The Five Ears Of Corn I'd Eat For Supper That Night.

Every Show Is Your Last Show. That's My Philosophy.

There's So Many People Who Move Around Our Country And Lose Track Of Their Own Ancestry. It's Nice To Know Where You Come From.

You've Got Work To Do. Don't Put This Off. And Don't Take The Long View, Here. You Know? Life Is Today And Tomorrow And - And If You're Lucky, Next Week.

For Me, The Monologue Was The Favorite Thing I Had Done In Radio. It Was Based On Writing, But In The End It Was Radio, It Was Standing Up And Leaning Forward Into The Dark And Talking, Letting Words Come Out Of You.

A Married Guy Is Responsible For Everything, No Matter What. Women, Thanks To Their Having Been Oppressed All These Years, Are Blameless, Free As Birds, And All The Dirt They Do Is The Result Of Premenstrual Syndrome Or Postmenstrual Stress Or Menopause Or Emotional Disempowerment By Their Fathers Or Low Expectations By Their Teachers Or Latent Unspoken Sexual Harassment In The Workplace, Or Some Other Airy Excuse. The Guy Alone Is Responsible For Every Day Of Marriage That Is Less Than Marvelous And Meaningful.

Men Peak At Age Nineteen And Go Downhill.

I'm Of An Age When If I Started To Do Eulogies, I'd Be Doing Nothing Else. You Don't Want To Be Remembered? I Don't Want Them To Be Told To Remember Me.

When The Country Goes Temporarily To The Dogs, Cats Must Learn To Be Circumspect, Walk On Fences, Sleep In Trees, And Have Faith That All This Woofing Is Not The Last Word.

God Is A Great Humorist. He Just Has A Slow Audience To Work With.

We Carry Adolescence Around In Our Bodies All Our Lives. We Get Through The Car Crash Age Alive And Cruise Through Our Early Twenties As Cool Dudes, Wily, Dashing, Winsome . . . Shooting Baskets, The Breeze, The Moon, And Then We Try To Become Caring Men, Good Husbands, Great Fathers, Good Citizens.

Tv News Is As Bloody As Shakespeare But Without The Intelligence And The Poetry. If You Watch Television News You Know Less About The World Than If You Drank Gin Out Of A Bottle

Evelyn Was An Insomniac So When They Say She Died In Her Sleep, You Have To Question That.

It's A Shallow Life That Doesn't Give A Person A Few Scars.

The Great Unrequited Love Tears Open Your Heart To The Beauty Of The World, Its Small Rivers And Upland Meadows. It Also Makes You Kinder To The Next Hundred Thousand Persons Who Cross Your Path.

Marrying For Sex Is Like Flying To London For The Free Peanuts And Pretzels. It's Not The Point Of The Thing, Is It?

Some Luck Lies In Not Getting What You Thought You Wanted But Getting What You Have.

Your Car, Comfort Though It Be, This Little Den And Dining Room On Wheels, Is A Prison That Deadens Your Senses, And To Feel Wholly Alive You Must Go For A Walk.

If You Can't Trust A Methodist With Absolute Power To Arrest People And Not Have To Say Why, Then Whom Can You Trust?

Lake Wobegon, The Little Town That Time Forgot And The Decades Cannot Improve.

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 Write On A Laptop, So It's Impossible To Count Drafts Anymore.

We'd All Be Alot Happier If We'd Stop Assuming We're Supposed To Be Happy.

All Fiction Comes From A Little Bit Of Reality, Otherwise It Would Have No Relevance. The Fun Is In Innovation, Take Something Real Like This Fair, And Make It Something Larger Than Life.

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.

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.

When You're A Little Kid, Your Heart Is Open And Tender And A Harsh Word Can Go Straight In And Become Part Of Your Life.

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Lawrence Bender

Edgar Allan Poe

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