Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Garrison Keillor (American Broadcaster, Writer)

Garrison Keillor (b.1942,) byname of Gary Edward Keillor, is an American humorist, novelist, short-story writer, and radio entertainer. He is best known for his bittersweet stories about the charming fictional Minnesota community of Lake Wobegon.

Born in Anoka, Minnesota, Keillor graduated from Minnesota University, having already published in The New Yorker during college.

Keillor is celebrated for conceiving and hosting the live public-radio show, A Prairie Home Companion (1974–87, 1993–2016.) His stories usually commenced with, “It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon” and blended pathos and comedy with his characteristic down-to-earth style and ironic wit. At its peak, nearly three million U.S. listeners heard the show each week on over 500 public radio stations. A film version of A Prairie Home Companion was released in 2006.

Keillor’s other programs include A Writer’s Almanac, a daily literary show that first aired in 1993. In 2017, the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) announced that it had terminated its contracts with Keillor because of allegations of inappropriate behavior.

Keillor’s fictional works include Happy to Be Here (1982,) Lake Wobegon Days (1985,) Leaving Home (1987,) We Are Still Married (1989,) Cat, You Better Come Home (1995,) and Wobegon Boy (1997.)

Keillor has also edited several volumes of poetry, including Good Poems (2002,) Good Poems for Hard Times (2005,) and Good Poems, American Places (2011,) and published a collection of his own, O, What a Luxury: Verses Lyrical, Vulgar, Pathetic & Profound (2013.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Garrison Keillor

You taught me to be nice, so nice that now I am so full of niceness, I have no sense of right and wrong, no outrage, no passion.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Passion

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?
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Identity

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Cats, Nature

It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Living

That’s what happens when you’re angry at people. You make them part of your life.
—Garrison Keillor

A book is a gift you can open again and again.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Book, Gift, One liners, Books

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.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Life

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Holidays, Christmas

This is Democratic bedrock: we don’t let people lie in the ditch and drive past and pretend not to see them dying. Here on the frozen tundra of Minnesota, if your neighbor’s car won’t start, you put on your parka and get the jumper cables out and deliver the Sacred Spark that starts their car. Everybody knows this. The logical extension of this spirit is social welfare and the myriad government programs with long dry names all very uninteresting to you until you suddenly need one…
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Help

I believe that sometimes you have to look reality in the eye and deny it.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Reality

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger. Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Advice

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.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Children

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Goodness

One day Donald Trump will discover that he is owned by Lutheran Brotherhood and must re negotiate his debt load with a committee of silent Norwegians who don’t understand why anyone would pay more than $120.00 for a suit.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Debt

The funniest line in English is “Get it?” When you say that, everyone chortles.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Humor

A good newspaper is never good enough, but a bad newspaper is a joy forever.
—Garrison Keillor

Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don’t put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Parenting, Parents

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.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Luxury

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.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Beauty

Humor, a good sense of it, is to Americans what manhood is to Spaniards and we will go to great lengths to prove 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.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Humor

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.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Adversity, Being True to Yourself, Luck

The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.
—Garrison Keillor
Topics: Father

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