Winston Groom Quotes

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 ~ Winston Groom

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 ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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 ~ Winston Groom

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 ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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 ~ Winston Groom

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

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. ~ Winston Groom

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

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. ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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

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. ~ Winston Groom

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

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 ~ Winston Groom

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

Jenny and I were like peas and carrots. ~ Winston Groom

Stupid is as stupid does~ ~ Winston Groom

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? ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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

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

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 ~ Winston Groom

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

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

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. ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

Life is like a box of chocolates. ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

Stupid is as stupid looks. ~ Winston Groom

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! ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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. ~ Winston Groom

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

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. ~ Winston Groom

There is no limit to the ingenuity of man if it is properly and vigorously applied under conditions of peace and justice. ~ Winston Churchill

Out of sight would not be out of mind, but it would at least be out of danger. ~ Winston Graham

Most people hate the taste of beer - to begin with. It is, however, a prejudice that many people have been able to overcome. ~ Winston Churchill

The most frightful of all spectacles is the strength of the civilization without its mercy. ~ Winston S. Churchill

I am too busy. I have not time for worry. ~ Winston Churchill

Anyone who was not a liberal at 20 years of age had no heart, while anyone who was still a liberal at 40 had no head. ~ Winston S. Churchill

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Men's tongues in some things outrun women's. ~ Winston Graham

The world, nature, human beings, do not move like machines. The edges are never clear-cut, but always frayed. Nature never draws a line without smudging it. ~ Winston Churchill

Aaron laid a hand on [Winn's] shoulder. "Winston, we're both adults. A duck charity every week? Is that what she told you as a child? Say the words with me: 'coven meeting.'"
"No..."
"And the meetings on All Hallows Eve, the solstices, all special meetings for duck wetland emergencies?"
"Glee club," Winn said weakly.
"Right. I often take off all my clothes in the moonlight and dance for glee club. ~ Scott Rhine

We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school. ~ Robert Winston

The Constitution was a reaffirmation of faith in the principles painfully evolved over the centuries by the English-speaking peoples. It enshrined long-standing English ideas of justice and liberty, henceforth to be regarded on the other side of the Atlantic as basically American. ~ Winston S. Churchill

We must build a kind of United States of Europe. ~ Winston Churchill

I do not presume to explain how to paint, but only how to get enjoyment. ~ Winston Churchill

Before the war it had seemed incredible that such terrors and slaughters, even if they began, could last more than a few months. After the first two years it was difficult to believe that they would ever end. ~ Winston Churchill

Russian may seem narrow-minded, impudent, or even stupid people, but can only pray for those who are against them. ~ Winston Churchill

If you destroy a free market you create a black market. ~ Winston Churchill

I am very glad there are quite a number of people born with a gift and a liking for all of this; like great chessplayers who play sixteen games at once blindfold and die quite soon of epilepsy. Serve them right! I hope the Mathematicians, however, are well rewarded. I promise never to blackleg their profession nor take the bread out of their mouths. ~ Winston Churchill

I don't believe in regretting - one should try to move on. My mum was good at that. She was deeply in love with my father, and he died when I was nine. She remarried, and her second husband died, too. I saw the grieving process she went through. My mother had this way of moving on. It was a fine trait. ~ Robert Winston

Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his straitened resources far greater that what we need in the attack. ~ Winston Churchill

Music, she thought, perhaps could be a continuing process, like life, a shedding of one skin as fast as another grew. Instead every tune seemed to exist with its notes firmly rooted in an event or an emotion or a period of time. ~ Winston Graham

From now on we shall bomb Germany on an ever-increasing scale, month by month, year by year, until the Nazi regime has either been exterminated by us or - better still - torn to pieces by the German people themselves. ~ Winston Churchill

These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler's invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city ... Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners. ~ Winston Churchill

The women's suffrage movement is only the small edge of the wedge, if we allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers, and husbands. ~ Winston Churchill

The eagle has ceased to scream, but the parrots will now begin to chatter. The war of the giants is over and the pigmies will now start to squabble. ~ Winston Churchill

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you. ~ Winston S. Churchill

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter ~ Winston Churchill

Just be real with yourself right now. We beat ourself. ~ Jameis Winston

If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed ~ Winston S. Churchill

You know how funerals are not for the dead, they're for the living? Bachelor parties are not for the groom, they're for the uncommitted. ~ Bill Murray