Margaret Haddix Quotes

Always carry a corkscrew and the wine shall provide itself.

The best decisions are taken quickly and well. You can prepare yourself, have all aspects of the game thought through, but the one who shines on the pitch is the one with intuition.

I expect people to at least use some thought.

How many situations can be resolved with less thinking?

I don't give parties, and I'm not in that social scene. I couldn't care less.

Starting to drink now in preparation for New Years. No more last minute stuff like Christmas.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

You should never assume anything coming from a critical standpoint. You should go into everything assuming you're going to get crushed.

Surprise parties are strange 'cause people jump up and they yell the word, 'surprise' at the party. I came home and you emerged from my furniture. You don't have to tell me how to feel. I don't need a hint.

So we do sometimes think because it has been found to pay.

One can never have too large a party.

Thinking. A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.

The main purpose of children's parties is to remind you that there are children more awful than your own.

A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.

Always plan for the worst, child; that way, all your surprises will be pleasant ones.

We seem to have trouble with [critical thinking]. And our political system doesn't help.

I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.

Logic is one thing and commonsense another.

I think we have every reason to hope for the best but expect and prepare for the worst.

It's time to P-A-R-T-Why? Because I gotta!

Arnold Schwarzenegger said it best: "Your son is sick. Ninety-eight doctors give you one diagnosis, two doctors give you another. Who are you going to go with?" Well, why would it be the conservative position to go with the two? That's not conservative, that's crazy.

I realize that after decades of positive thinking the notion of realism, of things as they are, may seem a little quaint. ... When the stakes are high enough and the risks obvious, we still turn to people who can be counted on to understand those risks and prepare for worst-case scenarios. A chief of state does not want to hear a general in the field say that he 'hopes' to win tomorrow's battle or that he's 'visualizing victory'.

Stupidity is no excuse of not thinking.

There was a table laid with jellies and trifles, with a party hat beside each place, and a birthday cake with seven candles on it in the center of the table. The cake had a book drawn on it, in icing. My mother, who had organized the party, told me that the lady at the bakery said that they had never put a book on a birthday cake before, and that mostly for boys it was footballs or spaceships. I was their first book.

False conclusions which have been reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulse.