Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Norton Juster
Age: 91 †
Born: 1929
Born: June 2
Died: 2021
Died: March 8
Architect
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Things
Open
Life
Eyes
Eye
Often
Wells
Imaginary
Well
Closed
Real
Ones
Something
Easier

More quotes by Norton Juster

Image
Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going.
Norton Juster
Image
There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction.
Norton Juster
Image
I never knew words could be so confusing, Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear. Only when you use a lot to say a little, answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.
Norton Juster
Image
When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd even bothered.
Norton Juster
Image
The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.
Norton Juster
Image
Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?
Norton Juster
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.
Norton Juster
Image
If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.
Norton Juster
Image
You must never feel badly about making mistakes.
Norton Juster
Image
I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.
Norton Juster
Image
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
Image
You can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.
Norton Juster
Image
You see, it's really quite simple. A simile is just a mode of comparison employing 'as' and 'like' to reveal the hidden character or essence of whatever we want to describe, and through the use of fancy, association, contrast, extension, or imagination, to enlarge our understanding or perception of human experience and observation.
Norton Juster
Image
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
Image
...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
Image
Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.
Norton Juster
Image
You may not see it now, said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way.
Norton Juster
Image
Since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.
Norton Juster