We have nearly complete misunderstanding between people of different faiths in Lake Wobegon, and that's probably one reason why we get along so very well. It's when you are trying to convince another person to think the same way that you do that there is friction and trouble between people. But when you feel that the other person is dumber than dirt, too dumb for words - why waste your breath - you get along pretty well. There's no bond between people that's quite so strong as when people each feel slightly superior towards the other one.

Humor is not a trick, not jokes. Humor is a presence in the world - like grace - and shines on everybody.

That's what I am, Frank thought, an ordinary genius. He had unlocked the secret of radio. The sport of the ordinary! Brillliant me like Reed Seymour couldn't figure this out for the life of them! Reed was ashamed of radio. ...radio was a cinch if you kept reaching down and grabbing up handfuls of the ordinary.

Jesus said the meek would inherit the earth, but so far all we've gotten is Minnesota and North Dakota.

The relationship between truth and a newspaper is like the relationship between the color green and the number seven. Occasionally you will see the number seven written in green, but you learn not to expect this.

A man can't eat anger for breakfast and sleep with it at night and not suffer damage to his soul.

TV news is as bloody as Shakespeare but without the intelligence and the poetry. If you watch television news you know less about the world than if you drank gin out of a bottle