Great Throughts Treasury

"I believe in dancing."

"I believe imagination is stronger than knowledge - that myth is more potent than history. I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts - That hope always triumphs over experience - That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."

"I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart, the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind."

"I did not set out to be a writer. It's something that came to me after I was 50 years of age. And I already had the life that I wanted and the wife I wanted and at that age I was fairly clear about what was important. The success that my writing is enjoying is like finding out your rich uncle has left you a train full of hammers. I mean, how many hammers can you use? It's chocolate syrup. It's an extra. So I take it very lightly. And if I were to fall off the charts tomorrow, I've already had more fame than I deserve and more money than I've ever had in my life. The thought that I could finally pay off my Visa bill! That's rich."

"I do not believe the meaning of life is a puzzle to be solved."

"I don't do art to address other people but to address myself. I've never done art with a thought of being a professional artist who makes a living by selling his art. I've never had a commercial show in a gallery. I suppose I'm like those who write poetry or songs without seeking publication. I make art in and for the experience itself ? to satisfy a need to express myself in a creative, colorful, non-verbal way."

"I do not want to know what you will hope for. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle. As the wagon driver said when they came to a long, hard hill: 'Them that's going on with us, get out and push. Them that ain't, get out of the way'."

"I fear the boredom that comes with not learning and not taking chances."

"I don't think the thing is to be well known, but being worth knowing."

"I keep sputtering out at intersections where life choices must be made and I either know too much or not enough. The examined life is no picnic."

"I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you."

"I don't think there is a hidden purpose to the universe that you have to puzzle out."

"I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy."

"I may be wrong."

"I play in a rock and roll band called The Rock Bottom Remainders. It's other authors. It's Stephen King and Amy Tan andDave Barry and a bunch of others of us. We play to raise money for charities, because we're kind of a freak show, but we're not bad. I play a guitar and a mandocello... And since you don't know what a mandocello sounds like or how it should be played, you can say with some authority I'm the most interesting mandocello player you've ever heard. Anyhow, we're in this hotel and this maid comes in and she keeps looking at me and she smiled and she said, "I know who you are." And I said, "No you don't. Who am I?" And said, "You're Kenny Rogers." And I of course said, "No, no, no." And she said, "If you were Kenny Rogers you wouldn't say you were Kenny Rogers would you? So you must be Kenny Rogers." ... So that evening I'm walking along with my guitars going to the elevator and she went up like a skyrocket, "See! I knew you were Kenny Rogers!" So I signed her card, "Love and kisses, Kenny Rogers.""

"I often say that I don't worry about the meaning of life--I can't handle that big stuff. What concerns me is the meaning in life--day by day, hour by hour, while I'm doing whatever it is that I do. What counts is not what I do, but how I think about myself while I'm doing it."

"I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling."

"I think my writing is part of my ministry."

"I recall an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one wish by God. The man said he would like to go about doing good without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to all human beings."

"I talk about very serious human affairs but with a lightness of heart."

"I use Cheer. I like the idea of a happy wash."

"I think, likewise, that some sense of being successful lies in knowing what scale you work best in. I give some examples: an astronomer is one whose mind can work on a cosmic scale. A physicist is one whose mind can handle the quantum scale. A theologian the metaphysical scale. A psychiatrist works with the deep picture and on and on and on. I think many people die confused and unfulfilled, because they spend a life trying to perform above or even below their abilities and perspective. They are in the wrong scale."

"I wanted to be a citizen of the world but not in a superficial way."

"I tend to keep books of art more than anything else now. I'm interested in visual things. And astronomy books. Things you can look at over and over and over again and see something new. ... My notions of God and the universe have always been too small. And limited by language. So now I'm looking at picture books. My children say I'm just beginning to enter my dotage: can't read, just looks at picture books."

"I will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. If you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there."

"I was 23 when I came to Bellingham in 1960 - from Mars, they must have thought. I've always had a very sentimental feeling about the importance of that first ministry in my life."

"I'd like to speak a foreign language well enough to get the jokes. I'd like to talk with Socrates, and watch Michelangelo sculpt David. I'd like to see the world as it was a million years ago and a million years hence."

"If only the scientific experts could come up with something to get it out of our minds. One cup of fixit fizzle that will lift the dirt from our lives, soften our hardness, protect our inner parts, improve our processing, reduce our yellowing and wrinkling, improve our natural color, and make us sweet and good."

"If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over?"

"If I were absolutely certain about all things, I would spend my life in anxious misery, fearful of losing my way. But since everything and anything are always possible, the miraculous is always nearby and wonders shall never, ever cease."

"If we could just figure out how to have more fun at it, maybe more of us would join the ranks of those who seek after justice and mercy."

"If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat or your house is on fire, you've got a problem. Everything else is merely an inconvenience."

"If you can't find the exact quote you want, make it up."

"If the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand. Everything is still possible."

"If you do not join the dancing you will feel foolish. So why not dance? And i will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. If you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there."

"If you want an interesting party sometime, combine cocktails and a fresh box of crayons for everyone."

"If you want an interesting adult party sometime, combine cocktails and a fresh box of Crayolas."

"Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know."

"If you notice phrases, ideas, and anecdotes that closely resemble those that appear elsewhere in my writing, it's not a matter of sloppy editing. I'm repeating myself. I'm reshuffling words in the hope that just once I might say something exactly right. And I'm still wrestling with dilemmas that are not easily resolved or easily dismissed. I run at them again and again because I am not finished with them. Any may never be. Work-in- progress on a life-in-progress is what my writing is about. And some progress in the work is enough to keep it going on."

"If you tell people you talk to God, they'll think you're religious, but if you say God talks to you, it's ten to one they'll think you're crazy."

"I'm a storyteller ? one who conveys the truth he sees in the same spirit employed by a poet or comedian or songwriter. This is true for all of us ? in the way we give an account of what we saw or did on a given day. I personally don't worry about the categories, but these thoughts come to mind: What I write is always somewhere between investigative journalism and myth."

"Imagination is more important than information. Einstein said that, and he should know. And they come. And they look. And we push. And they fly. We to stay and die on our beds. They to go and die howsoever, yet inspiring those who come after them to find their own edge. And fly."

"Imagination is better than knowledge."

"Instructions for Wayfarers: They will declare: Every journey has been taken. You shall respond: I have not been to see myself. They will insist: Everything has been spoken. You shall reply: I have not had my say. They will tell you: Everything has been done. You shall reply: My way is not complete. You are warned: Any way is long, any way is hard. Fear not. You are the gate - you, the gatekeeper. And you shall go through and on."

"It wasn?t in books. It wasn?t in a church. What I needed to know was out there in the world."

"It doesn't matter what you say you believe ? it only matters what you do."

"Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game? Do we still have what it takes to find a better way?"

"It is the chair in honor of all those who, however competently, embrace the impossible. Sit in that chair someday."

"It?s hard to explain the cost and consequences of environmental pollution and destruction to a six year old. But we are paying a desperate price even now because adults did not heed the instructions of kindergarten: Clean up your own mess; put things back where you found them; don?t take what?s not yours."

"It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber."