Winston Groom > Quotes

“Life is like a box of chocolates.”
― Winston Groom, Gump & Co.

“I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“Stupid is as stupid looks.”
― Winston Groom, Gump & Co.

“Run Forrest, run!”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“That's all I have to say about that.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“Bubba was my best good friend. And even I know that ain't something you can find just around the corner.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you're going to get.”
― Winston Groom

“I may be a idiot, but most of the time, anyway, I tried to do the right thing, an dreams is just 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.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“I have suffered a loss, Forrest, far greater than my legs. It's my spirit, my soul, if you will. There is only a blank there now - medals where my soul used to be.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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

“Jenny and I were like peas and carrots.”
― 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, Forrest Gump

“So the next day I asked Dan how is it that Bubba can get killed, and what kind of half assed nature law would allow that. He thought about it for a while, and said, 'Well, I'll tell you, Forrest, all of these laws are not specially pleasing to us. But there is laws nonetheless. Like when a tiger pounce on a monkey in the jungle - bad for the money, but good for the tiger. That is just the way it is.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“You treat everybody like they are your friend. It ain't that way in the world, Forrest. A lot of people ain't your friend. They are just lookin at you the way a banker looks at somebody comes in for a loan—How I'm gonna fleece this rube? That's the way it is, Forrest. That's the way it is.”
― Winston Groom, Gump & Co.

“If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.”
― 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, Forrest Gump

“It commenced raining one day and did not stop for two months. We went through ever different kind of rain they is, cep'n maybe sleet or hail. It was little tiny stinging rain sometimes, an big ole fat rain at others. It came sidewise an straight down an sometimes even seem to stand up from the ground. Nevertheless, we was expected to do our shit, which was mainly walking upland down the hills an stuff looking for gooks.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“There was a guy next to my cot name of Dan, who had been blowed up inside a tank. He was all burnt and had tubes going in and out of him everyplace, but I never heard him holler. He talk real low and quiet, and after a day or so, him and me got to be friends. Dan came from the state of Connecticut, and he was a teacher of history when they grabbed him up and threw him into the Army. But because he was smart, they sent him to officer school and made him a lieutenant. Most of the lieutenants I know were about as simple minded as me, but Dan was different. He had his own philosophy about why we were here, which was that we were doing maybe the wrong thing for the right reasons, or vice-versa, but whatever it is, we ain't doing it right. Him being a tank officer and all, he say it ridiculous for us to be waging a war in a place where we can't hardly use our tanks on account of the land is mostly swamp or mountains. I told him about Bubba and all, and he nod his head very sadly and said there will be a lot more Bubbas to die before this thing is over.”
― Winston Groom, Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump

“By 1929 a handful of farsighted flight pioneers had concluded that “aviation could not progress until planes could fly safely day or night in almost any kind of weather.” Foremost among these was Dr. Jimmy Doolittle, recently armed with a PhD in aeronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In”
― Winston Groom, The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight

“Sometimes, I guess there just arn't enough rocks”
― Winston Groom Forrest Gump

“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, Forrest Gump