Quotes about goodness
page 40

See also the Wikipedia article on the Lake Wobegon effect.
A Prairie Home Companion, News from Lake Wobegon

William Black talking with Oskar
"A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem" (p. 297)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: "It's easy to be emotional. You can always make a scene... Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good."

“We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic.”
Source: The Sweet Far Thing

“Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.”

“Why not just live in the moment, especially if it has a good beat?”

"They Thought They Were Better" in TIME magazine (21 July 1980) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924295,00.html
“It is good people who make good places.”
Source: This sentence is widely cited as being by Anna Sewell and from Black Beauty, but it is not to be found in the novel—her only published writing. The closest thing to it is "good places make good horses" in Ch. IX (pp. 45–46).
Source: Boys "R" Us

“If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good”

1770s
Source: Letter to Abigail Adams (27 April 1777), published as Letter CXI in Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841) edited by Charles Francis Adams, p. 218

“Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.”
Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“Making money is art. And working is art. And good business is the best art.”
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 92
Context: Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called 'art' or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. During the hippies era people put down the idea of business – they'd say 'Money is bad', and 'Working is bad', but making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

“Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?”
Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.”
Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything.”
Shakespeare
Literary Studies (1879)
Context: The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.

“Life must be rich and full of loving--it's no good otherwise, no good at all, for anyone.”
Source: Selected Letters, 1940-1956
“Bad days, good days, ‘I’ll cut you if you look at me the wrong way’ days. I’ll take them all.”
Source: Gunmetal Magic

“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”
Source: Anna Karenina
Source: Hunt the Moon

“A poor original is better than a good imitation.”
“On your best day, you're only as good as I am on my worst with one arm tied behind my back.”
Source: Magic Bleeds

“I've got a good mind to go out and join a club and beat you over the head with it.”

“Never miss a party… good for the nerves--like celery.”
Source: Gatsby Girls

“It's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies”
Source: On the Road

Source: A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition

“may I be I is the only prayer--not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong.”
Source: Nightlife
Source: Magic Burns

“That is a good book it seems to me, which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.”

To the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland (31 March 1809)
1800s, Post-Presidency (1809)

“Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It's a good life, enjoy it.”

“The act of laughing releases some nice chemical into your brain, you feel good and it's free.”
Source: Sam's Letters to Jennifer

“If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples.”


“I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.”