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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.

-Garrison Keillor

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When The New Yorker

Garrison Keillor

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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.

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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.

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.

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Humor Is Not A Trick, Not Jokes. Humor Is A Presence In The World - Like Grace - And Shines On Everybody.

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.

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

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

A Child Can Educate Just About Anybody.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

To Norwegians, The Polka Is A Form Of Martial Art.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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 .

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.

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

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.

Give Guilt - The Gift That Lasts Forever.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When In Doubt, Look Intelligent.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Being Rich And Thin Isn't Everything.

Vodka Is Tasteless Going Down, But It Is Memorable Coming Up.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

A Loss For Words

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Felt Bad For That World That We Have Given A Generation Of Kids.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Some People Think It Is Difficult To Be A Christian And To Laugh, But I Think It's The Other Way Around. God Writes A Lot Of Comedy, Its Just That He Has So Many Bad Actors.

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

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

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.

My Ability To Keep Cool In A Crisis Is Based Entirely On Not Knowing All The Facts.

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

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.

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.

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.

This Is The Big Reason Most Humorists Fail. Drunks Don't Read Books.

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

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

Men Peak At Age Nineteen And Go Downhill.

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

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

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

Being An English Major Prepares You For Impersonating Authority.

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.

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.

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

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.

That's What I Am, Frank Thought, An Ordinary Genius. He Had Unlocked The Secret Of Radio. The Sport Of The Ordinary! Brillliant Me Like Reed Seymour Couldn't Figure This Out For The Life Of Them! Reed Was Ashamed Of Radio. ...radio Was A Cinch If You Kept Reaching Down And Grabbing Up Handfuls Of The Ordinary.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

There's No Mastery To Be Had. You Love The Attempt. You Don't Master A Story Any More Than You Master A River. You Feel Lucky To Canoe Down It.

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

Finding Yourself

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Childhood Is The Small Town Everyone Came From.

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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 Want To Resume The Life Of A Shy Person.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Not Everyone Has A Life's Work. Some People Simply Have A Life.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

In The End, All Solutions Are Temporary.

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