Hendrik Willem van Loon Quotes

“The history of the world is the record of a man in quest of his daily bread and butter.”

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.”

“For tolerance (and you must remember this when you grow older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own so-called "modern world" are apt to be tolerant only upon such matters as do not interest them very much.”

“A loon thought he was Frank Sinatra and every time Frank came on TV or radio the loon would go mad, impostor!”

“If you can't beat em. Become as crazy as a fuckin' loon and enjoy the ride.”

“The Loon CharmTo A Life Filled with A Love Whose Voice Always Calls You Home”

“Is heaven more beautiful than the country of the muskox in summer when sometimes the mist blows over the lakes and sometimes the water is blue and the loons cry very often?”

“If somebody'd of come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty-year old woman hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order and recriminations, they'd of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons.”

“Zachariah, Zachariah,' whispers Rachel, casting a practised eye over the back of his head and down the length of him, from the shoulder blades where his wings once grew, epochs ago, in some other guise: angel—guardian, avenging—or great vagrant bird—Daurian Jackdaw, Chimney Swift, Pacific Loon!”

“Now here's the thing about being a little off-center; you're never sure if you're a bona fide loon or if you have insight that other people don't have.You have to navigate through life using a kind of psychic gyroscope to keep from falling too far one way or another, and you feel a peculiar kinship with other people who are also a little bit off-center.”