Wal-Mart is going in and slaughtering [small towns] just as we once killed the buffalo.

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

Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.

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.

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

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

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

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

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do, and in those times, you must do something anyway.

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

And then the earth, the world, the planet, the galaxy, and the entire solar system went crazy.

The sun had begun its descent toward the horizon, and the sounds of the carnival played like a familiar song behind me.

To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a central human system of thought.

A generous friendship no cold medium knows, Burns with one love, with one resentment glows.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look / Upon the withered world, but haste to bring / His lighted candle, and his story-book, / And live with me the poetry of spring.

It's hard to believe the life that 'Someone Like You' has taken on. It's proof that people hunger for great songs - and they are open to different interpretations of songs they love.

I used to do poetry and write stories and stuff - I never really had anybody standing over my shoulder, like, "What did you write? Let me hear it." I hate that type of stuff.

Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine.

I believe a lot in what I do and in my work. I believe in me.

I beg You, O my God, to be my life, my ship, my haven. You have made me ascend the cross of Your Son and I struggle to accept it as best I can. I am sure that I shall never come down from it.