Winston Groom Quotes

If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.

Mama read it an began pulling her hair an weepin an praisin the Lord, 'cause it say I am 'Temporarily Deferred' on account of I am a numbnuts.

But let me tell you this: sometimes at night, when I look up at the stars, an see the whole sky jus laid out there, don't you think I ain't rememberin it all. I still got dreams like anybody else, an ever so often, I am thinkin about how things might of been. An then, all of a sudden, I'm forty, fifty, sixty years ole, you know?
Well, so what? I may be a idiot, but most of the time, anyway, I tried to do the right thing
an dreams is jus dreams, ain't they? So whatever else has happened, I am figgerin this: I can always look back an say, at least I ain't led no hum-drum life.
You know what I mean?

One day we found them. They must of been holding a gook convention or something, cause it seem like the same sort of deal as when you step on a anthill and they all come swarming around.

I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.

Germany," Lindbergh said, "had the ambitious drive of America, but that drive was headed for war.

For the first time in nearly twenty-five years, our country is having anything to do with the Chinamen, an it is an event far more important than any damn ping-pong game. It is diplomacy, and the future of the human race might be at stake. Do you understand what I am saying?
I shrug my shoulders an nod my head, but something down in me sinkin' fast. I am jus' a po' ole idiot, an now I have got the whole human race to look after.

With the advances of science he saw moral perspective being lost. Science and technology practically took on the role of religion, so that man was actually worshipping at the altar of science, a fallacy, if not a heresy, that could lead to the undoing of the American spirit.

Knew Americans as friends and would probably help them. If the Americans

All my own life, I ain't understood shit about what was goin on. A thing jus happen, then somethin else happen, then somethin else, an so on, an haf the time nothin makin any sense.

Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away.

Stupid is as stupid does~

After a trip to Japan Mitchell famously predicted that the next war would be fought in the Pacific after a Japanese sneak attack on a Sunday morning in Hawaii. Eddie Rickenbacker, who had served as Mitchell's driver before becoming an ace combat pilot, wryly quipped that "the only people who paid any attention to him were the Japanese." Most

Let me say this: being an idiot is no box of chocolates. People laugh, lose patience, treat you shabby. Now they say folks supposed to be kind to the afflicted, but let me tell you this - it ain't always that way. Even so, I got no complaints, cause I reckon I done live a pretty interesting life, so to speak.

Now you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running!

After seventeen days of flying school he could now call himself a pilot. After putting in twenty-five hours of flying time, he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army. W

Jenny and I were like peas and carrots.

Americans have seen fit to elect twelve generals to the U.S. presidency, but even before there was a United States of America generals ruled the earth. Take

Bubba then grabbed a hold of my leg and his eyes got all cloudy and that terrible pink sky seem to drain all the colour in his face.
He was trying to say something, and so I bent over real close to hear what it was. But I never could make it out. So I asked the medic, ' You hear what he say?'
And the medic say, 'Home. He said, home.'
Bubba, he died, and that's all I got to say about that.

Lindbergh expressed these thoughts in a splendid speech while accepting the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy at the Washington Aero Club in January 1946. Titling his speech "Honoring the Wright Brothers," he took as his theme "the way in which science was divorcing man from his old sense of independence and moral values."16

I get a letter once a week from my mama. She say everything fine at home..
I write her back too, when I can, but what I'm gonna tell her that won't start her bawling again? So I just say we is having a nice time and everybody treating us fine.

All my life, I ain't understand shit about what was going on. A thing just happen, then something else happen, then something else, an so on, and half the time nothing making any sense. But Dan say it is all part of a scheme of some sort, and the best way we can get along is figure out how we fit into the scheme, and then try to stick to our place. Somehow knowing this, things get a good bit clearer for me.

I still got dreams like anybody else, an ever so often, I am thinkin about how things might of been.

I got to tell you, that if it weren't for that harmonica music, i might of just packed up and gone home, but it made me feel so good, I can hardly describe it. Sort of like my whole body is the harmonica and the music give me goosebumps when I play it.

After a while, they start landing some relief in helicopters, and I guess the napalm bomb have frightened away the gooks. They must of figured that if we was willing to do that to ourselves, then what the hell would we of done to them?
They taking the wounded out of there, when along come Sergeant Kranz, hair all singed off, clothes burnt up, looking like he just got shot out of a cannon.

The weeks go by so slow I almost think time passin backwards.

I found the head nurse and asked her, and she said Dan has been flown back to America on account of they can take better care of him there. I asked her if he is okay, and she said, 'Yeah, if you can call two punctured lungs, a severed intestine, spinal separation, a missing foot, a truncated leg, and third degree burns over half the body okay, then he is just fine. I thanked her, and went on my way.

Things is very primitive in the jungle - no place to shit, sleep on the ground like an animal, eat out of cans, no place to take a bath or nothing, clothes is all rotting off.

In late 1915 there appeared on the Western Front a German flier named Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, after his royal title and a penchant for painting his squadron's Fokker triwing fighters red. He was a natural born killer who shot down more than eighty enemy aircraft before himself being fatally brought down by ground fire

Dear Forrest,
I am sorry there was no time for us to speech other before I left. The doctors made their decision quickly, and before I knew it, I was being taken away, but I asked if I could stop long enough to write you this note, because you have been so kind to me whileI was here.
I sense, Forrest, that you are on the verge of something very significant in your life, some change, or event that will move you in a different direction, and you must seize the moment, and not let it pass. When I think back on it now, there is something in your eyes, some tiny flash of fire that comes now and then, mostly when you smile, and , on those infrequent occasions, I believe what I saw was almost a Genesis of our ability as humans to think, to create, to be.
This war is to for you, old pal - nor me - and I am well out of it as I'm sure you will be in time. The crucial question is, what will you do? I don't think you're an idiot at all. Perhaps by the measure of tests or the judgement of fools, you might fall into some category or other, but deep down, Forrest, I have seen that glowing sparkle of curiosity burning deep in your mind. Take the tide, my friend, and as you are carried along, make it work for you, fight the shallows and the snags and never give up. You are a good fellow, forrest, and you have a big heart.
Your pal,
Dan

I don't know if mama was right, that we each have a destiny, or if if was Lt Dan, that we are all just floating around, accidental, like on a breeze, but I think ... I think ... maybe ... it's both happening at the same time.

Stupid is as stupid looks.

Bubba was my best good friend. And even I know that ain't something you can find just around the corner.

But as Lindbergh's friend former president Herbert Hoover instructed, "When you had been in politics long enough, you learned not to say things just because they are true."21

Life is like a box of chocolates.

Let me say this: bein a idiot is no box of chocolates.

There are jus times when you can't let the right thing stand in yo way.