Jerry spinelli quotes

Or maybe you’re merely uncomfortable with uncertainty. Like the rest of the human race.

Now I don't really write for adults or kids - I don't write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that, otherwise you end up preaching down.

Vowels were something else. He didn't like them and they didn't like him. There were only five of them, but they seemed to be everywhere. Why, you could go through twenty words without bumping into some of the shyer consonants, but it seemed as if you couldn't tiptoe past a syllable without waking up a vowel. Consonants, you know pretty much where you stood, but you could never trust a vowel.

You are what you are" "Which is what? I wondered

Every child's bedroom is as important as a telescope orbiting the planet earth or a philosopher's study.

The desert seems to be a brown wasteland of dry, prickly scrub whose only purpose is to serve as a setting for the majestic saguaros. Then, little by little, the plants of the desert begin to identify themselves: the porcupiny yucca, the beaver tail and prickly pear and barrel cacti, buckhorn and staghorn and devil's fingers, the tall, sky-reaching tendrils of the ocotillo.

A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs it is, it can't seem to make up it's mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, even frantic, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake.

Every name is real. That's the nature of names.

I seem to have a natural tendency to want to share my own observations and feelings with other people, and writing seems to be the way I'm best equipped to do that.

It's a shame publishers send rejection slips. Writers should get something more substantial than a slip that amounts to a pile of confetti. Publishers should send something heavier. Editors should send out rejection bricks, so at the end of a lot of years, you would have something to show besides a wheelbarrow of rejection slips. Instead you could have enough bricks to build a house.

It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.

I’ll still be missing you as much as ever. I’l still smile at the memory of you. I’ll still be - Okay, I’ll say it again - loving you, but I won’t abandon myseld for you. I cannot be faithful to you without being faithful to myself.

Of course, all of their words for a thousand years could not fill the hole left by his mother, but they could raise a loving fence around it so he didn't keep falling in.

No one on earth is so boring and insignificant that he or she is not worth writing or reading about...One thing's for sure—no one but you can be the hero of your story.

I feel like I'm playing chess underwater. The pieces keep floating away. I don't know where things are. I can't figure out tomorrow.

He said even if it's too cloudy to see, the sun will still rise, it will still be there. "But that's the whole point," I said. "Seeing it." "Is it?" he said.

The golden rule of writing is to write what you care about. If you care about your topic, you'll do your best writing, and then you stand the best chance of really touching a reader in some way.

I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl…. And… I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I’m not outside my world anymore, and I’m not really inside it either. The thing is, there’s no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.

A strong relationship is an honest relationship, and no honest relationship is all peaches and cream. Love is the key. Where love abides, anger is but a passing visitor.

We live in a silent explosion, Everything is flying away from everything else... flying away... flying away...

It was the day of the worms. That first almost-warm, after-the-rainy-night day in April, when you bolt from your house to find yourself in a world of worms. They were as numerous here in the East End as they had been in the West. The sidewalks, the streets. The very places where they didn't belong. Forlorn, marooned on concrete and asphalt, no place to burrow, April's orphans.

When you own nothing, it's easy to let things go.

Write what you care about. If you do that, you stand the best chance of doing your best writing.

Peace and harmony do not require perfection. Thank goodness for that—because life so often seems to be an itch here, a glitch there, a mess waiting to happen. Harmony is flexible. It bends with imperfection. So should you.

No one's hurt is too small, no worry too removed, no blessing so elusive that it cannot be seen by the eyes in the back of the human heart.

You liked me." I smiled. "You were smitten with me. You were speechless to behold my beauty. You had never met anyone so fascinating. You thought of me every waking minute. You dreamed about me. You couldn't stand it. You couldn't let such wonderfulness out of your sight. You had to follow me." I turned to Cinnamon. He licked my nose. "Don't give yourself so much credit. It was your rat I was after." She laughed, and the desert sang.

Every day I hold my breath until I see her. Sometimes in class, sometimes in the hallway. I can't start breathing until I see her smile at me. She always does, but the next day I'm always afraid she won't. At lunch I'm afraid she'll smile more at BT than at me. I'm afraid she'll look at him in some way that she doesn't look at me. I'm afraid that when I go to bed at night I'll still be wondering. I'm always afraid. Is that what love is - fear?

They say talk is cheap. Maybe so. But kindness is even better—it's free! Free to give. Free to receive. Makes you wonder why there's not more of it, huh?

I am a mess. Like that MargieMocha, I am spilled across a floor, but there's nobody to mop me up. I have only one thing to show for the day: Perry Delloplane. The sound of a name. It is a grape in my mouth. I roll it over and over on my tongue--perrydelloplaneperrydelloplaneperrydelloplaneperrydelloplane--but when I try to crush it with my teeth, it slips away.

I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.

Her smile put the sunflower to shame.

To a person who expects every desert to be barren sand dunes, the Sonoran must come as a surprise. Not only are there no dunes, there's no sand. At least not the sort of sand you find at the beach. The ground does have a sandy color to it, or gray, but your feet won't sink in. It's hard, as if it's been tamped. And pebbly. And glinting with -- what else -- mica.

It (enchantment) started when the earth was born. It never stops. It is, always. It's just here.

Many girls have been romanced under the moon, and I don’t mean to say moonlight is overrated, but few I think have known the magic of a sunrise kiss.

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

How much better might human communication be if words were as precious as diamonds? If each of us were allotted only 100 words per day?

His smile was so wide he’d have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway

Kids still can be said to live in their own little world. Even if their parents are helicoptering around them, assigning play dates and so forth, I think they're still living in some sense of their own little perceptual worlds.

If I get a new idea today—or any day—I won't run from it. I won't trash it. If it's something I really want to do—I'll do it.

Maybe it was the angle, but her fawn's eyes, looking up at me, seemed larger than ever. I had to make an effort to keep my balance lest I fall into them.

The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then - maybe - the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.

I went to Gettysburg College, where the famous Civil War battle was fought. I majored in English. I would've liked to major in writing, but they didn't offer a major in that.

I became a children's author by accident.

Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.

He was the Grand Marshall of our Everyday Parade

Do not follow me! Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tommorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!

Why do we wrap things? Usually to protect them. The more fragile they are, the more important the wrapping. Your dream is prey to many perils. It may shatter under the blows of criticism, evaporate with competition's heat, sink to the bottomless depths of others' indifference. Tend to your dream. Protect it as you would a fallen nestling. Until the day when it—and you—will fly.

Love is big. Love makes room for conflicting feelings.

As we approached each other, the noise and the students around us melted away and we were utterly alone, passing, smiling, holding each other's eyes, floors and walls gone, two people in a universe of space and stars.

He's so cute, I can't help myself.

She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.

Nobody has the time, the time cannot be owned. The time is free to everyone

Disagreement is not necessarily a reason to head for Splitsville. In fact, a relationship without disagreement is probably too brittle to last. Some of the best human bonds are forged in the fire of disagreement.

We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past "weird" and "strange" and "goofy." Her ways knocked us off balance.

Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.

Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you eat lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morning, he's the first person you think of.

This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.

You occupied my space. But because you were not in my present, when I looked into my future I saw . . . nothing. Isn't that sad? And stupid?

And smiles to go before I weep, And Smiles to go before I weep.

Live today like there's no tomorrow!

Tell me I didn't imagine it, Leo. Tell me that even though our bodies were in seperate states, our star selves shared an enchanted place. Tell me that right around noon today (eastern time) you had the strangest sensation: a tiny chill on your shoulder...a flutter in the heart...a shadow of strawberry-banana crossing your tongue...tell me you whispered my name.

Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?' No,' I said. People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.

In my mind, I'm writing for everybody.

It was different with you, Leo. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same.

Whos love do you cherrish more? Hers or theirs? when you deside that, it's all downhill from there.

When bad things turn good, the reason can usually be found in the human heart—sometimes in the hearts of great masses of people, sometimes in the heart of a solitary soul.

Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry? You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.

Home is everything you can walk to.

Great achievement goes through, not around, discouragement. Is there a roadblock in my way, keeping me from something I want to achieve? Am I discouraged? I understand now that discouragement often precedes achievement. Instead of retreating from the roadblock or seeking a way around it, I will boldly punch a hole through it and continue toward my goal.

When was the last time you used the words 'teach me'? Maybe not since you started first grade? Here's an irony about school: The daily grind of tests, homework, and pressures sometimes blunts rather than stimulates a thirst for knowledge.

Why fit in when you're born to stand out?

I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it's not a symphony at all. There's no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It's as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning its instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the music mess of it.

Beware of solipsism Funny word. Sounds like it means "love of melons" or something. I looked it up. It means believing that "the self is the only reality." Am I solipsist?

She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh. My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's; but timid introverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence I threw back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life

Life is populated with scarecrows—all those people and things that seem so scary and trouble our sleep. Isn't it nice to know that most of them turn out to be made of nothing but straw?

This was the ghetto: where children grow down instead of up.

Events become feelings, feelings become events

So," he said, "we ourselves will be the candle flames." He put his hands on his chest. "Feel your hearts, how warm they are.

Who are you?' I didn't understand the question. I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?' I gave him my name. 'Stopthief.

Happy". I had not heard that word since Mr. Milgrom spoke it at the last Hanukkah. I asked him the question that had been on my mind since then. "Tata, what is happy?" He looked at me and at the ceiling and back to me. "Did you ever taste an orange?" he said.

Friendship isn't always sunnyside up.

She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.

Hey, this is it—right now!—the time when you find out who you are and what you can do. And how will you ever know if you don't try new stuff?

Stargirl began to improvise. She flung her arms to a make-believe crowd like a celebrity on parade. She waggled her fingers at the stars. She churned her fists like an egg-beater. Every action echoed down the line behind her. The three hops of the bunny became three struts of a vaudeville vamp. Then a penguin waddle. Then tippy-toed priss. Every new move brought new laughter from the line.

One of the best things about life is friends. We all agree on that. And yet our shyness with strangers often prevents friendship from ever gaining a foothold. If only we would realize that the other person is probably just as shy as we are and is simply waiting—and hoping—for us to make the first move.

I didn't realize we were being watched. We were all being watched

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow.

I'm Sorry are two of the most powerful words in our language, especially when they are not flipped blithely over the shoulder but spoken from the heart. They help restore order, balance, harmony. They reduce pain. They heal broken friendship. If they were medecine, they'd be called a miracle.

Whom do I write for? I write for the story. Each story, it seems to me, knows best how it should be told. As I once put my ear to the railroad track, I listen now for the voice of my story.

Best friends are always together, always whispering and laughing and running, always at each other's house, having dinner, sleeping over. They are practically adopted by each other's parents. You can't pry them apart.

When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.

Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she's gone. I'm not me anymore.

And so I'm me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I'm hoping you wouldn't want it any other way. Not that you weren't flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and self-respect - well, that's trophy enough for any guy's ego, huh?

You are truly focused when you're so focused that you don't know you're focused.

Who doesn't love a compliment? But every compliment comes with a warning: Beware—Do Not Overuse. Go ahead, sniff your compliment. Take a little sip. But don't chew, don't swallow. If you do, you risk abandoning the good work that inspired the compliment in the first place. If that happens, maybe it was the compliment and not the job well done that you were aiming for all along.

If you start by hating one or two people, you won't be able to stop. Pretty soon you'll hate a hundred people." "A zillion?" "Even a zillion. A little hatred goes a long, long way. It grows and grows. And it's hungry." "Like Cimmamum?" "Even hungrier. You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants. It's never satisfied. And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart"--I pointed to her heart; she looked down at her chest--"and all you'll have left is a hateful heart.

In every age there are plenty of people around to remind you what you cannot possibly do. Thank goodness, for these naysayers provide a priceless service: They spur...us to achieve great things.

I think of the flower in the bud: huddled, compressed, dark. Yet somehow it feels the night, knows moon from sun. It waits...waits.

I'm that way, goofy as it sounds. Sometimes I don't want things to happen-I'm talking about good things, even wonderful things-because once they happen, I can't look forward to them anymore. But there's an upside, too. Once a wonderful thing is over, I'm not all that sad because then I can start thinking about it, reliving and reliving it in the virtual world in my head.

Heart and head are contrary historians.

Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

if you learn to hate one or two persons... you'll soon hate millions of people.

Usually it takes me about nine to 12 months to write a book.

You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.

I love surprises! That's what is great about reading. When you open a book, you never know what you'll find.

Because life doesn't always happen according to a timetable or calendar. And feelings can't be scheduled.

I have a curious background for someone who turns out to be a writer.

Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow.

Angels and crows passed each other, one leaving, the other coming.

I felt alone on the planet, drifting through the cosmos. With both hands I reached out to the night. There was no answer. Or maybe I just couldn't hear it.

A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?

I faced the gaudy sunflower on her canvas bag -- it looked hand-painted and at last my eyes fell into hers. I said, 'Thanks for the card.' Her smile put the sunflower to shame. She walked off.

Today the mockingbird does not sound very happy. It sounds if it is coming apart. As of the very heart of itself-its song-is breaking into pieces and flying off in a hundred directions.

We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home.

Don't confine yourself to a select group of friends, often known as a clique. Cliques by definition leave people out. Lock yourself into one, and you'll never know how many terrific friendships you may be missing.

As we meandered, she said my name three times: "Stargirl?" "Yes?" "That was better than TV." "It was." "Stargirl?" "Yes?" "Does the sun do that everyday?" "Yes." "Stargirl?" "Yes?" "Everyday is sun day.

We were awash in tiny attentions. Small gestures, words, empathies thought to be extinct came to life... We discovered the color of each other's eyes.

Ironic," Betty Lou said at last. "The cereus insists on sunlight---that's why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flowers for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers." It takes from the day," I said, "gives to the night.

You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people.

In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow.

The flash would prove that proton decay really happens. The flash would mean that the matter of the proton - the solid stuff - had turned into the energy of the flash (E-mc2). Totally. Nothing left behind. No ash. No smoke. No smell. Nada. One moment it's there, the next moment - pffft - gone. What would it mean? Only this: Nothing lasts. Nothing. Because everything that exists is made of protons.

And the more you love someone, the safer it is to be mad at them. Love can handle mad, no problem.