Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.
Norton Juster
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Norton Juster
Age: 91 †
Born: 1929
Born: June 2
Died: 2021
Died: March 8
Architect
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Intellect
Decayed
Smell
Slavish
Concern
Wasps
Gone
Odious
Words
Bankrupt
Syllables
Composition
Sign
Wasp
More quotes by Norton Juster
Since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.
Norton Juster
Do you think it will rain? Milo: But I thought you were the Weather Man? No, I'm the Whether man, for it is more important to know whether there will be weather, whether than what the weather will be.
Norton Juster
Oh dear, all those words again, thought Milo as he climbed into the wagon with Tock and the cabinet members. How are you going to make it move? It doesn't have a-- Be very quiet, advised the duke, for it goes without saying.
Norton Juster
You see, to tall men I'm a midget, and to short men I'm a giant to the skinny ones I'm a fat man, and to the fat ones I'm a thin man.
Norton Juster
We never choose which words to use, for as long as they mean what they mean to mean, we don’t care if they make sense or nonsense.
Norton Juster
Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.
Norton Juster
And remember, also, added the Princess of Sweet Rhyme, that many places you would like to see are just off the map and many things you want to know are just out of sight or a little beyond your reach. But someday you'll reach them all, for what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.
Norton Juster
Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not.
Norton Juster
What you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.
Norton Juster
You see. . . it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?
Norton Juster
...it's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.
Norton Juster
Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.
Norton Juster
One of the problems you have when you read with kids is that once they like something they want you to read it a hundred times.
Norton Juster
You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and not get wet.
Norton Juster
Why, can you imagine what would happen if we named all the twos Henry or George or Robert or John or lots of other things? You'd have to say Robert plus John equals four, and if the four's name were Albert, things would be hopeless.
Norton Juster
Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?
Norton Juster
I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.
Norton Juster
If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.
Norton Juster
Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going.
Norton Juster
Many of the things which can never be, often are.
Norton Juster
