Garrison Keillor Quotes (54 Quotes)

The ensemble also performed on National Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion ... You sounded like the Chicago Symphony and yet you're not crabby and grumpy like they are -- amazing

Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.

They said it would be terrible if the show were not in St. Paul. I listen to people who tug at my sleeve.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.

Ralph Stanley is like an uncle to us and now that all my uncles are gone, Ralph's singing is even more precious. This album of classic folk songs is one of his best.

Powder Milk biscuits Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness

Guys are in trouble these days, ... Years ago, manhood was an opportunity for achievement and now it's just a problem to be overcome. Guys who once might have painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling are now just trying to be Mr. O. K. All-Rite, the man who can bake a cherry pie, be passionate in a skillful way, and yet also lift them bales and tote that barge.

It's an honor to be taken off the air. I had to wait until I was 63. You are nobody in radio until you've been fired at least once, and I've never been fired. At least it's vindication.

Powdermilk biscuits Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done

I want to resume the life of a shy person.

Being Lutheran, Mother believed that self-pity is a deadly sin and so is nostalgia, and she had no time for either

It (The New York Times) reads like it was edited by two elderly sociologists, one of whom has been dead for many years

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

Lake Wobegon, the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve.

On investments, 1998 Where I'm from we don't trust paper. Wealth is what's here on the premises. If I open a cupboard and see, say, 30 cans of tomato sauce and a five-pound bag of rice, I get a little thrill of well-being much more so than if I take a look at the quarterly dividend report from my mutual fund.

Humor is not a trick, not jokes. Humor is a presence in the world like grace and shines on everybody.

I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that, if one psychologist in the room laughs at something a rat does, all of the other psychologists in the room will laugh equally. Nobody wants to be left holding the joke.

I'm not busy... a woman with three children under the age of 10 wouldn't think my schedule looked so busy.

In your 50s, instead of panicking about the income you need to build up in the next 15 or 20 years, your best move is to concentrate on getting your costs down. If you will need less to live on in retirement, then you won't need to risk desperate accumulation strategies now. Right That's a pretty basic point that everyone seems to miss. I want you to make cost reduction Plan A in your Late-Start Retirement Strategy.

When you do something for a long time, as I have, it becomes difficult to keep yourself in trim. You become slack, but this has been very inspiring. It makes a person resolve to do better when the radio show starts up again in the fall.

People will miss that it once meant something to be Southern or Midwestern. It doesn't mean much now, except for the climate. The question, 'Where are you from' doesn't lead to anything odd or interesting. They live somewhere near a Gap store, and what else do you need to know

Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.

There's so many people who move around our country and lose track of their own ancestry. It's nice to know where you come from.

Beauty isn't worth thinking about what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.

They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.

Life is continuous. Life never stops. We come to the really great questions and before we can answer them, life has moved on to something else.

Big mistake, ... Why do I need another weekly deadline

and opened a Harry Potter book, read a few pages and said 'I could have done that. I could have done that while doing all the other things that I do. Why didn't I'

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

The moment they started shooting this picture it's like he became 30 years younger. He's tremendously focused and capable.

is that we're this little, quiet pond, undisturbed. Sort of like a museum piece. Except we don't want to be a museum piece. Listening to the radio is not a normal thing. We have to get millions of people to do something that is not normal. So we have to continue to work to deserve the attention of the millions of people who listen.

Mark Twain told jokes, but they somehow stayed funny for a hundred years they're still funny today. When Mark Twain said, 'He was a good man in the worst sense of the word,' we know exactly what he's talking about. When he said 'Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds,' it still is funny. Mark Twain was really a miracle.

The funniest line in English is "Get it?" When you say that, everyone chortles.

A good newspaper is never nearly good enough but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever.

I think the most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.'

A book is a gift you can open again and again.

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.

Describing what would happen if Minnesota sold Lake Superior One day Donald Trump will discover that he is owned lock, stock, and roulette wheel by the Lutheran Brotherhood and must renegotiate his debt load with a committee of silent Norwegians who don't understand why anyone would pay more than 120 for a suit.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.

A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded pistol on your coffee table - There's nothing wrong with them, but it's hard to stop thinking about it.

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

It is the classic Freaks, Fatties, Fanatics and Faux Culture Excursion beloved of European journalists for the past 50 years.

The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose.

Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye, and deny it.

A Democrat in a red state ... Were you elected, or is this a divine miracle

We had a bevy -- literally a bevy -- of queens on our show, representing every agricultural product, ... They were quite self-possessed young women. They had poise, which is the one thing that royalty most requires. The swine queen probably had more poise than anybody else. You would have to, in order to be 'Miss Swine.'

A compassionate conservative is someone who electrocutes juveniles but lets them have a last 'make a wish'