Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Adopted. Big Deal; so was Superman
Nothing exists without its opposite.
Once a thing is known,it can't be UNknown.
Nothing about life is sacred until we make it so.
You have to be mad in the language you're mad in.
I'd rather be a flash than a slowly burning ember.
Beware the short terminal guy with nothing to lose.
There's only one thing to say to the censors: Shut up.
But the truth doesn't need to be known, or believed, to be true.
If you've seen 'Friday Night Lights' - that was just like my town.
If you think your life sucks, it probably does. Do something about it.
A sport has its own built-in integrity - doesn't need an artificial one.
You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.
And I think if you're going to be with somebody, you owe it to them to show yourself.
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking.
I can't think of a subject that is taboo for me, unless it's one I simply don't know anything about.
If you were to look at each atom as a universe unto itself, think of the number of universes within each of us.
...racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.
Athletics carries its own set of truths, and those truths are diminished when manipulated by people with agendas.
...we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it.
It seems to me if you don't know anything about child development you shouldn't intimate in your "reporting" that you do.
It seems to me if you don't know anything about child development you shouldn't intimate in your 'reporting' that you do.
I have no personal agenda in whether or not a library keeps 'Whale Talk' or 'Athletic Shorts' or any of my books shelved.
My first book, 'Running Loose', was censored back in 1983 or '84. Every book I've written since has been censored somewhere.
The frustration for a parent is that you might be available all the time, but the kid may approach you only about 10% of the time.
If we are to stop bullying in schools, we have to start with teachers and administrators. If we want to stop it, we have to stop it.
My early life had a lot to do with my origins as a writer, but I didn't get into doing any writing at all until I was about 35 years old.
You put yourself out there in the truest way you can and hope others do the same. You'll connect or you won't, but you did what you could.
As much as we'd like to think life is sacred, there's not a lot of evidence for that. The universe is maddeningly casual, giving and taking it.
If you're writing about angry people, you use the language of anger. If you're writing about desperate people, you use the language of desperation.
I am for anything that makes teens visible in an honest way... in other words, anything that represents them the way they are, positively or negatively.
Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.
'Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.
The kids you turn your backs on when you take away their stories are the ones who lose, as well as you as a community of adults who may appear to fear their truths.
Something about the joy and pain of that moment, something about the excruciating contrast, made me feel that no matter what happens now, my life has been worth it. What a ride.
No amount of effort could have stopped that, because our points of view - the way we perceive things - are inextricably linked to our beliefs, ... ,our beliefs color what we see.
You can't judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.
A sport has its own built-in integrity, doesn't need an artificial one. Athletics carries its own set of truths, and those truths are diminished and manipulated by people with agendas.
Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.
I think when you’re dying you start looking for important things in the corners. You can’t let anything that seems even semi-important pass, because it passes forever. Things take on meaning.
I believe there was a big bang and that because of that we are all connected into infinity, and I know very little having to do with human beings that doesn't also have to do with connection.
The value of a story like 'Deadline' is kids get to look at death at the perfect distance. They can put the book down. They can experience the story, rub up against it, but it's not real life.
I was pretty anti-academic, and I wasn't much of a student. I had a really short attention span and did not get a lot out of high school academically. I think college was a little the same way.
I have made a career of creating characters who fight school authority and chomp at the bit to get out into the 'real' world and live their lives, mostly because that's the kind of teenager I was.
Any writer my age almost can't get away from being influenced by Kurt Vonnegut, partially because of his simple, clear way of stating things. To read Vonnegut is to learn how to use economy words.
When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.
If someone's different from you and it scares you or makes you mad, that's God telling you to take a closer look. If you're scared or mad, that's about you, not about the person who scares you or angers you.
'Whale Talk' is a tough book, but it is also a compassionate book about telling the truth and about redemption. I didn't draw the tough parts out of thin air; they are stories handed to me by people in pain.
It's a scary thing; moving on. Part of me wishes life were more predictable and part of me is excited that it's not. I think it's impossible to tell the good things from the bad things while they're happening.
What I hope my writing reflects... is a sense of the connections between all human beings... and a different perspective on the true nature of courage. For me, those are things worth exploring and writing about.