Tom Bodett Quotes

• They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

  Tom Bodett

  Love, Happiness, Happy

  Tom Bodett (1985). “As Far As You Can Go Without a Passport: The View from the End of the Road : Comments and Comic Pieces”, Perseus Books

  61 Copy quote

• In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

  Tom Bodett

  Life, Encouraging, Education

  207 Copy quote

• The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

  Tom Bodett

  Inspirational, Funny, Differences

  41 Copy quote

• You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.

  Tom Bodett

  New Friendship, New Friends

  10 Copy quote

• The media is in the business of finding exceptions to everyday life. Bad things are still the exception. That's good, because once bad things stop being news, we really are in trouble. If people forget that bad is the exception, they think they live in a horrible world. There is so much that works and is right and friendly and warm. But we take that for granted.

  Tom Bodett

  Thinking, Media, People

  10 Copy quote

• I'm happy to report you still get nothing you don't need at Motel 6, and, therefore, you don't have to pay for it. I don't need valet parking. If I can drive the old crate 300 miles to the hotel all by myself, I can certainly handle the last nine feet to the parking space.

  Tom Bodett

  Feet, Space, Needs

  "Actually, Motel 6 Doesn't Leave the Light on for You". Interview with Kimberly D. Williams, adage.com. August 30, 2007.

  6 Copy quote

• I'm real. I believe what I'm saying. If Motel 6 wasn't the type of operation they say it is - and I stay at them when I travel - I wouldn't do their commercials. That comes through on the radio, and that's what it's all about.

  Tom Bodett

  Real, Believe, Radio

  8 Copy quote

• It's not like Alaska isn't wilderness - it mostly is. But most Alaskans don't live in the wild. They live on the edge of the wild in towns with schools and cable TV and stores and dentists and roller rinks sometimes. It's just like anyplace else, only with mountains and moose.

  Tom Bodett

  School, Alaska, Mountain

  60 Copy quote

• In the America I see from here, anything is possible - especially the impossible.

  Tom Bodett

  America, Impossible, Anything Is Possible

  8 Copy quote

• Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

  Tom Bodett

  Thinking, Self, Pretension

  "Actually, Motel 6 Doesn't Leave the Light on for You". Interview with Kimberly D. Williams, adage.com. August 30, 2007.

  6 Copy quote

• That's what the American odyssey is really about: Leaving home. Leaving home and coming home, and trying to understand the difference.

  Tom Bodett

  Home, Differences, Leaving

  9 Copy quote

• Kids in Alaska don't know they're growing up on the Last Frontier. It's just what they see on the license plates, and it's something tourists like to say a lot because they've never been around so many mountains and moose before.

  Tom Bodett

  Growing Up, Kids, Alaska

  12 Copy quote

• Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

  Tom Bodett

  Writing, School, Needs

  6 Copy quote

• Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

  Tom Bodett

  Struggle, Stories, Mines

  8 Copy quote

• For some people, you know, Garrison Keillor, Rush Limbaugh, really the stars, they've got a passion. They eat, drink and breathe radio, and I'm not like that. I used to think I wanted to be. But I need to be away from it, too, and that's the difference, I think.

  Tom Bodett

  Stars, Passion, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• People feel vulnerable when they travel. Nobody wants to be taken advantage of or talked into something they don't want. Staying at Motel 6 makes you feel smarter. In fact, I think it actually means you are smarter, but I have no hard data to support that.

  Tom Bodett

  Taken, Mean, Thinking

  "Actually, Motel 6 Doesn't Leave the Light on for You". Interview with Kimberly D. Williams, adage.com. August 30, 2007.

  5 Copy quote

• Somebody says, 'Do a Tom Bodett, a folksy kind of thing,' and it sounds like something out of 'Hee Haw,' very insulting. They turn wry humor into disparaging sarcasm, and you get what amounts to insulting advertising.

  Tom Bodett

  Sarcasm, Insulting, Sound

  54 Copy quote

• Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time.

  Tom Bodett

  Alaska, Roots, Petitions

  5 Copy quote

• I'm not an impersonator. I've only got one voice and only do one guy and his first-person essays.

  Tom Bodett

  Voice, Guy, Firsts

  5 Copy quote

• I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

  Tom Bodett

  Common, Broadcasting, Form

  "Actually, Motel 6 Doesn't Leave the Light on for You". Interview with Kimberly D. Williams, adage.com. August 30, 2007.

  13 Copy quote

• Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it.

  Tom Bodett

  Men, Alaska, Three

  4 Copy quote

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