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The Mathemagician nodded knowingly and stroked his chin several times. “You’ll find,” he remarked gently, “that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that’s hardly worth the effort.

Norton Juster

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Norton Juster
Age: 91 †
Born: 1929
Born: June 2
Died: 2021
Died: March 8
Architect
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Worth
Remarked
Effort
Nodded
Wrong
Chin
Times
Chins
Find
Gently
Thing
Hardly
Several
Stroked
Easily
Knowingly

More quotes by Norton Juster

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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
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...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.
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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?
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I received a grant from The Ford Foundation to write a book for kids about urban perception, or how people experience cities, but I kept putting off writing it. Instead I started to write what became The Phantom Tollbooth
Norton Juster
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It's bad enough wasting time without killing it.
Norton Juster
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He paused again as a tear of longing rolled from cheek to lip with the sweet-salty taste of an old memory.
Norton Juster
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if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.
Norton Juster
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I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.
Norton Juster
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I think really good books can be read by anybody.
Norton Juster
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And some looked even more like each other than they did like themselves.
Norton Juster
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But I suppose there's a lot to see everywhere, if only you keep your eyes open.
Norton Juster
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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
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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
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Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.
Norton Juster
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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
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The way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.
Norton Juster
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That's the way most everyone gets here. It's really quite simple: every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to Conclusions whether you like it or not. It's such an easy trip to make that I've been here hundreds of times.
Norton Juster
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Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet.
Norton Juster
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AHA! interrupted Officer Shrift, making another note in his little book. Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.
Norton Juster
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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