Obama's the most thoughtful-sounding president I can remember. He seems to be saying what he wants to say, and that is a great relief. He always sounds like he's thinking about what he's saying while he's saying it, and that's a rare thing in politicians.

Roy Blount, Jr.

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

Roy Blount, Jr.

funny-drinking anchors book

I do not Twitter. I don't want to Twitter, and I don't see any point in Twittering. The last thing I want to do is tell people what I'm doing at the moment because I'm probably not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Roy Blount, Jr.

lasts want people

It's my belief that sanity lies in realizing that reality is not exactly what we had in mind.

Roy Blount, Jr.

mind lying reality

English is an outrageous tangle of those derivations and other multifarious linguistic influences, from Yiddish to Shoshone, which has grown up around a gnarly core of chewy, clangorous yawps derived from ancestors who painted themselves blue to frighten their enemies.

Roy Blount, Jr.

gnarly blue enemy

People don't necessarily want or need to be done unto as you would have them do unto you. They want to be done unto as they want to be done unto.

Roy Blount, Jr.

done people needs

Ham's substantial, ham is fat. Ham is firm and sound. Ham's what God was getting at When He made pigs so round.

Roy Blount, Jr.

cooking pigs food

Even intellectuals should have learned by now that objective rationality is not the default position of the human mind, much less the bedrock of human affairs.

Roy Blount, Jr.

affair should-have mind

Certainly people have said a lot of deeply unfortunate and stupid things in Southern accents, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the accent itself.

Roy Blount, Jr.

stupid mean people

Going to Vanderbilt did a lot of things for me, and one of the things it cured me of was the need to follow college football.

Roy Blount, Jr.

college football needs

Studying literature at Harvard is like learning about women at the Mayo Clinic.

Roy Blount, Jr.

hygiene learning drinking

I always wanted to win the Super Bowl so I could take it and hold it and see what lies beyond it. I think it may be the sun.

Roy Blount, Jr.

winning lying thinking

Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art, from writing to gardening to sculpture, is creativity. I beg to differ.

Roy Blount, Jr.

creativity writing art

Any given generation gives the next generation advice that the given generation should have been given by the previous generation but now it's too late.

Roy Blount, Jr.

should-have advice giving

The legendary yet factual Curtis Wilkie has been the right man in the right place at an uncanny number of extraordinary times.

Roy Blount, Jr.

legendary numbers men

Mozart combined high formality and playfulness that delights as no other composition in any other medium does.

Roy Blount, Jr.

mediums delight doe

The first time I walked into a library, I got so excited I almost wet my pants.

Roy Blount, Jr.

library pants firsts

I heard on public radio recently, there's a thing called Weed Dating. Singles get together in a garden and weed and then they take turns, they keep matching up with other people. Two people will weed down one row and switch over with two other people. It's in Vermont. I don't think I'd be very good at Weed Dating.

Roy Blount, Jr.

weed garden thinking

Cats have intercepted my footsteps at the ankle for so long that my gait, both at home and on tour, has been compared to that of a man wading through low surf.

Roy Blount, Jr.

cat home animal

The North isn't a place. It's just a direction out of the South.

Roy Blount, Jr.

south

The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor', I replied, 'They used to say the same thing about drugs'.

Roy Blount, Jr.

writing time book