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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.

-Garrison Keillor

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Important Book Reading Is

Garrison Keillor

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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.

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A Girl In A Bikini Is Like Having A Loaded Pistol On Your Coffee Table - There's Nothing Wrong With Them, But It's Hard To Stop Thinking About It.

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.

I Usually Don't Work With Other People; I Do The Whole Show Myself.

Powdermilk Biscuits: Heavens, Theyre Tasty And Expeditious! Theyre Made From Whole Wheat, To Give Shy Persons The Strength To Get Up And Do What Needs To Be Done

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

No Matter What Time Of Year I Come Here, People Always Say The Same Thing: Its Not Usually Like This.

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.

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.

Years Ago, Manhood Was An Opportunity For Achievement, And Now It Is A Problem To Be Overcome.

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.

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

A Good Friend Is A Person Who Thinks You're One Of The Good Eggs, Even If He Knows You're A Little Cracked.

Spending Time In A Church Does Not Make You Religious, Any More Than Spending Time In A Garage Makes You A Car.

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

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 The End, All Solutions Are Temporary.

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.

You're Such A Big Liar You Gotta Get Your Neighbor To Call Your Dog.

I Grew Up In A Fundamentalist Protestant Family That Stressed That We Were A Select People And So We Were To Avoid Contact With Others Who Did Not Share Our Faith.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

You Learn This Great Lesson Of Life: It's Not About Me. It's Just Not. The Matter Of Talent-which Seemed So Important To You When You Were Young-is Not Of Great Importance. We're Simply A Conduit. We Take Things Out Of The Air Into Us And Put Them In The Form Of Stories. That's Pretty Much It.

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

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.

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

Sport Is A Seductive Metaphor (life As A Game In Which We Gain Victory Through Hard Work, Discipline, And Visualizing Success). But The Older Metaphor Of Farming (life As Hard Labor That Is Subject To Weather And Quirks Of Blind Fate And May Return No Reward Whatsoever And Don't Be Surprised) Is Still In Our Blood.

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

Being An English Major Prepares You For Impersonating Authority.

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.

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

Childhood Is The Small Town Everyone Came From.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

In Lake Wobegon, We Don't Forget Mistakes.

As A Former English Major, I Am A Sitting Duck For Gift Books, And In The Past Few Years I've Gotten Dickens, Thackeray, Smollet, Richardson, Emerson, Keats, Boswell And The Brontes, All Of Them Great, None Of Them Ever Read By Me, All Of Them Now On A Shelf, Looking At Me And Making Me Feel Guilty.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Forget What You Learned About Poetry In School. (that It's Complex, Opaque, A Problem To Be Solved In 1500 Words By Tomorrow.) Poetry Is The Last Preserve Of Honest Speech And The Outspoken Heart. It Holds The Cadence Of Common Life. It Has A Passion For Truth And Justice And Liberty; It Is A Buoy To People In Ordinary Trouble: To A Friend Whose Life Has Gone Skidding Into The Meridian, Who Has Been Struck By Bad News, Who Is Frying Eggs And Hash Browns And Has Whiny Child Clinging To His Pant Leg.

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

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Give Up Your Good 'christian' Life And Follow Jesus

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.

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

The Audience Is Invisible And That's Good. Somewhere My Voice Is Drifting Through A Swine Barn And The Sound Of It Seems To Perk Up The Sows' Appetite. Or A Lady Is Listening On Headphones As She Jogs Along A Beach, Running To My Cadence. Or A Dog Sits In Front Of The Radio, Head Cocked, And The Sibilants Excite Him In Some Mysterious Way. A Dog's Humorist, That's Me.

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

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.

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

We English Majors...need To Promote Public Libraries As A Tool In The War Against Terror. How Many Readers Of Edith Wharton Have Engaged In Terroristic Acts? I Challenge You To Name One...do We Need To Wait Until Our Cities Lie In Smoking Ruins Before We Wake Up To The Fact That A First-class Public Library Is A Vital Link In National Defense?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Can Write Anywhere. I Write In Airports. I Write On Airplanes. I've Written In The Back Seats Of Taxis. I Write In Hotel Rooms. I Love Hotel Rooms. I Just Write Wherever I Am Whenever I Need To Write.

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

Your Life Is A Work Of Art, And In The End, The Underlying Theme Of Great Art Is Bravery And Hope And Love.

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

A Loss For Words

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

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

As For Family Values, They Are Whatever They Are - Some Families Are Tight, Others Are Blown Away Like Dandelion Puffs. A Main Value In Minnesota Is Still: Don't Waste My Time, Don't B.s. Me, I Wasn't Born Yesterday.

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

Adolescence Hits Boys Harder Than It Does Girls. Girls Bleed A Little And Their Breasts Pop Out, Big Deal, But Adolescence Lands On A Guy With Both Feet. . . . Your Body Is Engulfed By Chemicals Of Rage And Despair, You Pound, You Shriek, You Batter Your Head Against The Trees. You Come Away Wounded, Feeling That Life Is Unknowable, Can Never Be Understood, Only Endured And Sometimes Cheated.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Compassionate Conservative Is Someone Who Electrocutes Juveniles But Lets Them Have A Last 'make A Wish'.

In California Virtually Everyone Has Had Their Teeth Whitened. If They All Smiled At Once, They Would Give Us A Headache.

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

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 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.

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?

You Don't Have To Justify A Beautiful Stroke Of Good Luck. Accept It. Smile And Say Thank You.

Men Peak At Age Nineteen And Go Downhill.

A Cruise Ship Is A Floating Town Of Lazy People.

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 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.

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

Being Rich And Thin Isn't Everything.

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.

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.

I Don't Want Them To Be Told To Remember Me.

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

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

No Innocent Man Buys A Gun, And No Happy Man Writes His Memoirs.

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.

Those People On Daytime Tv Talking About How Their Parents Never Gave Them The Positive Feedback They Needed And That's Why They Shot Them- Those Are Not Minnesotans.

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

I Write For A Radio Show That, No Matter What, Will Go On The Air Saturday At Five O'clock Central Time. You Learn To Write Toward That Deadline, To Let The Adrenaline Pick You Up On Friday Morning And Carry You Through, To Cook Up A Monologue About Lake Wobegon And Get To The Theater On Time.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Humor Is Not About Problems With Airline Luggage Handlers. It's About Our Lives In America And It's About The Ends Of Our Lives And It's About Everything That Happens After That And Everything That Happened Before.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Give Guilt - The Gift That Lasts Forever.

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.

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

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

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

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

We Writers Don't Really Think About Whether What We Write Is Good Or Not. It's Too Much To Worry About. We Just Put The Words Down, Trying To Get Them Right, Operating By Some Inner Sense Of Pitch And Proportion, And From Time To Time, We Stick The Stuff In An Envelope And Ship It To An Editor.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Sex Is Not A Mechanical Act That Fails For Lack Of Technique, And It Is Not A Performance By The Male For The Audience Of The Female; It Is A Continuum Of Attraction That Extends From The Simplest Conversation And The Most Innocent Touching Through The Act Of Coitus.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

She Gave Him Such A Look... Man Oh Man, If Looks Could Kill. That One Might Have Totalled A City Block.

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

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.

I Love Rhymes; I Love To Write A Poem About New York And Rhyme 'oysters' With 'the Cloisters.' And 'the Lady From Knoxville Who Bought Her Brassieres By The Boxful.' I Just Feel A Sort Of Small Triumph.

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

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 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.

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

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

Finding 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.

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.

... And People Are To March Around The Church To Commemorate The Event, Palm Sunday, When Jesus Rode Into Jerusalem And Was Greeted With Applause And With Palms. People Thought He Had Come To Overthrow The Romans, But ... No ... He Had Come To Change Them ... And That Led To Things Turning Bad.

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.

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.

Boys, The First Drink Is A Boon, The Second Is A Gamble, The Third Is Poor Judgment, And Then The Rate Of Descent Gets Steep

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.

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

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.

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

Don't Tear Up The Page And Start Over Again When You Write A Bad Line-try To Write Your Way Out Of It. Make Mistakes And Plunge On. Writing Is A Means Of Discovery, Always.

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.

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

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

A Child Can Educate Just About Anybody.

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

The Funniest Line In English Is 'get It?' When You Say That, Everyone Chortles.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Marriage, Friends, Is A Lifelong Feast; Love Is No Light Lunch.

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.

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

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