Garrison Keillor

GARRISON KEILLOR

Birthplace: Anoka, Minnesota
Current Residence: Lives in Wisconsin and New York.
Education: Attended Anoka High School and the Univesity of Minnesota.
Profession: Keillor has worked in radio since 1963; His work has appeared in The Atlantic,  The New Yorker,  Harper's,  and the New York Times; Host and writer of public radio's weekly "A Prairie Home Companion."
Influences, Interests and Interesting Tidbits: Roy wanted to marry all four of them, but radio was not ready for polygamy, he knew, and rather than ruin a good deal, he remained single. He is still broadcasting "The Blue Loon Ballroom," midnight-five a.m., and you can catch him as you're driving your load of potatoes east from Grand Forks to Duluth on Highway 2, a smooth voice in the night, and even though he doesn't say much, you know that this man has had some bad haircuts in his day and lost a true love or two. This man has come home to empty rooms and confronted Sunday mornings that stretched for weeks. He has wandered the trashy streets at 2 a.m. imagining that happiness might emerge from an alley and take him by the hand. He has known futility and grief in full measure. Heartbreak is what makes the broadcaster. Without it, there is no gravel in your voice, no weight, no twang, and nobody remembers you ten minutes later. Heartbreak is the key to broadcasting success.

Garrison Keillor, "Roy Bradley, Boy Broadcaster"

Book reading is a solitary and sedentary pursuit, and those who do are cautioned that a book should be used as an integral part of a well-rounded life, including a daily regimen of rigorous physical exercise, rewarding personal relationships, and a sensible low-fat diet. A book should not be used as a substitute or an excuse.
-Garrison Keillor, The Book of Guys

"I grew up in Lake Wobegon, a town where the Lutherans drive Fords, the Catholics drive Chevies, and if you drove something else, you were watched pretty closely. I ran away to the University of Minnesota in 1960 and spent six happy years in the midst of extravagant freedom, marching against the war, shouting epithets at visiting bigwigs, campaigning for the campus magazine's right to print explicit poetry, going to theaters where the actors jumped out on the stage and confronted us with their honesty and our hopeless inhibitions. I enjoyed this, but in my mature years, I wonder: what has the great extension of freedom of expression done for America? What good did it accomplish? Did Lenny Bruce make people healthier and happier? Is it an advance that every gas station and grocery store carries in plain view, magazines for men to masturbate by? The decline of public manners, the decline of the arts worries me. The great need of the artist is not freedom but discipline. The purpose of the artist is not to outrage the middle class but to inspire people, to give us courage to live our lives. Death and cruelty are outrageous, but art is meant to give joy. And the artistic expression that came flooding in after the end of censorship seems mostly joyless."
-Garrison Keillor, AOL ACLU online chat, January 17, 1996