Norton Juster Tollbooth Quotations

Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.

The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort.

Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?

A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.

What you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.

Since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.

If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.

And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.

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.

Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going.

...I'll continue to see things as a child. It's not so far to fall.

It's bad enough wasting time without killing it.

But just because you can never reach it, doesn’t mean that it’s not worth looking for.

Why not? That's a good reason for almost anything - a bit used perhaps, but still quite serviceable.

There is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye.

Many of the things which can never be, often are.

You must never feel badly about making mistakes,

Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet.

The way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.