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

- Tom Bodett

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

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

- Tom Bodett

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

- Tom Bodett

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

- Tom Bodett

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 schoo…

- Tom Bodett

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

- Tom Bodett

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 be…

- Tom Bodett

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 …

- Tom Bodett