Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
29 quotes
"You had the courage to try and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do."
"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."
"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."
"Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?"
"...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."
"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."
"Of course, if you've ever gotten a surprise package, you can imagine how puzzled and excited Milo was; and if you've never gotten one, pay close attention, because someday you might."
"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."
"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."
"It has been a long trip," said Milo, climbing onto the couch where the princesses sat; "but we would have been here much sooner if I hadn't made so many mistakes. I'm afraid it's all my fault.""You must never feel badly about making mistakes," explained Reason quietly, "as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons."
"...it's very much like your trying to reach infinity. You know that it's there, you just don't know where-but just because you can never reach it doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for."
"You weren't thinking and you weren't paying attention either. People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums."
"He paused again as a tear of longing rolled from cheek to lip with the sweet-salty taste of an old memory."
"Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo."Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context."
"So each one of you agrees to disagree with whatever the other one agrees with, but if you both disagree with the same thing, aren't you really in agreement?"
"For always remember that while it is wrong to use too few, it is often far worse to use too many." - Which Macabre"
"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."
"...mirages are things that aren't really there that you can see very clearly.""How do you see something that isn't there?"..."sometimes it's much simpler than seeing things that are"..."
"A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables."
"You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons."
"I wouldn't eat too many of those [half-baked ideas] if I were you. They may look good, but you can get terribly sick of them."-Tock"
"Rhyme and reason answer all problems"
"Expect everything so that nothing comes unexpected."
"I cannot take your sense of humor--and, with it, you've nothing to fear from me."
"And some looked even more like each other than they did like themselves."