Quotes

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

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

There are no wrong roads to anywhere. Except the that leads you to a car crash.

Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago.

You know that it's there, but you just don't know where - but just because you can never reach it doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for.

So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.

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

It's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn at all that matters.

Whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else.

One of the things I always did was think literally when I heard words. On the Lone Ranger [radio serial] they would say, 'Here come the Injuns!' and I always had an image of engines, of train engines."

There is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye.

When I grew up I still felt like that puzzled kid-disconnected, disinterested and confused. There was no rhyme or reason in his life. My thoughts focused on him, and I began writing about his childhood, which was really mine... Today's world of texting and tweeting is quite a different place, but children are still the same as they've always been. They still get bored and confused, and still struggle to figure out the important questions of life. Well, one thing has changed: As many states eliminate tolls on highways, some children may never encounter a real tollbooth. Luckily there are other routes to the Lands Beyond. And it is possible to seek them, and fun to try. (2011)

Not everyone in the publishing world of the 1960s embraced The Phantom Tollbooth. Many said that it was not a children's book, the vocabulary was much too difficult, and the ideas were beyond kids. To top it off, they claimed fantasy was bad for children because it disorients them. The prevailing wisdom of the time held that learning should be more accessible and less discouraging. The aim was that no child would ever have to confront anything that he or she didn't already know. But my feeling is that there is no such thing as a difficult word. There are only words you don't know yet - the kind of liberating words that Milo encounters on his adventure.

Time is a gift.