Jerry Spinelli Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Song, Morning, Voice

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.185, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Morning, Thinking, Lunch

  Jerry Spinelli (2002). “Loser”

  5 Copy quote

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

  Jerry Spinelli

  Heart, Flames, Hands

  Jerry Spinelli (2003). “Milkweed”, p.161, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

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

  Jerry Spinelli

  4 Copy quote

• Heart and head are contrary historians.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Heart, Historian, Head And Heart

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Thinking, Talking, Sound

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Beach, Color, Feet

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Past, Balance, Way

  Jerry Spinelli (2001). “Stargirl”, p.11, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Sorry, Pain, Powerful

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Hurt, Heart, Eye

  Jerry Spinelli, Eileen Spinelli (2014). “Today I Will”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  8 Copy quote

• 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?

  Jerry Spinelli

  Believe, Mean, Reality

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Sky, Devil, Dry

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.60, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  23 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Stars, Heart, Self

  Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.52, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Eye, Hands, Sunflower

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.54, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Past, Wake Up, Vowels

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Rejection, Four, Novel

  6 Copy quote

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

  Jerry Spinelli

  Children, Important, Earth

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Long, One Day, Answers

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.28, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

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

  Jerry Spinelli

  Flower, Dark, Moon

  Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.74, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  5 Copy quote

• Live today like there's no tomorrow!

  Jerry Spinelli

  Live For Today, Today, Tomorrow

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Heart, Feelings, Trying

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Gone, Losing, Stargirl

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.142, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  6 Copy quote

• 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?

  Jerry Spinelli

  Stupid, Space, Saws

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.144, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Hate, Heart, Two

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Crush, Names, Trying

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.191, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  4 Copy quote

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