Quotes from Norton Juster

Why don't they live in Illusions?' suggested the Humbug. 'It's much prettier.' 'Many of them do,' he answered, walking in the direction of the forest once again, 'but it's just as bad to live in a place where what you do see isn't there as it is to live in one where what you don't see is.

And, as you've discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.

Now and then, though, someone does begin to grow differently. Instead of down, his feet grow up toward the sky. But we do our best to discourage awkward things like that. What happens to them? insisted Milo. Oddly enough, they often grow ten times the size of everyone else, said Alec thoughtfully, and I've heard that they walk among the stars.

Perhaps someday you can have one city as easy to see as Illusions and as hard to forget as Reality.

You weren't thinking and you weren't paying attention either. People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums.

They walked for a while, all silent in their thoughts, until they reached the car and Alec drew a fine telescope from his shirt and handed it to Milo. Carry this with you on your journey, he said softly, for there is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye. Through it you can see everything from the tender moss in a sidewalk crack to the glow of the farthest star — and, most important of all, you can see things as they really are, not just as they seem to be. It's my gift to you.

Perhaps you'd care for a synonym bun, suggested the duke.

Where is the sound? someone hastily scribbled on the blackboard, and they all waited anxiously for the reply. Milo caught his breath, picked up the chalk, and explained simply, It's on the tip of my tongue.

My goodness', thought Milo. 'Everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best.

Why is it,' he said quietly, 'that quite often even the things which are correct just don't seem to be right?

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.

Being lost is not a matter of knowing where you are. It's a matter of knowing where you aren't.

They all looked very much like the residents of any small valley to which you've never been.

But that can never be, said Milo, jumping to his feet. Don't be too sure, said the child patiently, for one of the nicest things about mathematics, or anything else you might care to learn, is that many of the things which can never be, often are. You see, he went on, it's very much like your trying to reach Infinity. You know that it's there, but you just don't know where — but just because you can never reach it doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for.

Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail? Where would you find a beaver that big? grumbled the Humbug as his pencil point snapped. I'm sure I don't know, he replied, but if you did, you'd certainly know what to do with him.

I'm the Whether Man, not the Weather Man, for after all it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be.

Now, remember: they're not for eating, but for listening, because you'll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles from a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bed springs, and of course, all kinds of laughter. There's a little of each, and in far off, lonely places, I think you will be glad to have them.

You must excuse my gruff conduct," the watchdog said, after they'd been driving for some time, "but you see it's traditional for watchdogs to be ferocious.

just follow that line forever, said the Mathemagician, and when you reach the end, turn left. There you'll find the land of Infinity, where the tallest, the shortest, the biggest, the smallest, and the most and least of everything are kept. I don't have that much time, said Milo anxiously. isn't there a quicker way? Well, you might try this flight of stairs, he suggested, opening another door and pointing up.It goes there, too.

And, most important of all, added the Mathemagician, here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you. He placed in Milo's breast pocket a small gleaming pencil which, except for the size, was much like his own.

And some looked even more like each other than they did like themselves.

as long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.

Just because you have a choice, it doesn't mean that any of them HAS to be right.

Whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way...for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.