Garrison Keillor

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.
- Leaving Home (1987)

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
- We Are Still Married (1989)

My ancestors were Puritans from England. They arrived here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I think the most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.'
Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.
- All from Garrison Keillor

About:

Garrison Keillor was born at Anoka, Minnesota on 7 Aug 1942. He was raised in a strict fundamentalist sect called the Plymouth Brethren, in which dancing, drinking, and cards were forbidden, so his family became adept story tellers. He wanted to write, and set a goal of writing for the New Yorker, which he first did in 1969. After doing a story on the Grand Ole Opry for the New Yorker, he decided to try his own radio variety show. Prairie Home Companion was an instant hit, and went national in 1980, on the strength of the stories Keillor told of the mythical Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above-average.".