Jerry Spinelli Quotes

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“I grabbed her, right there outside the lunch room in the swarming mob. I didn't care if others were watching. In fact, i hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Star people are rare.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”

“Home is everything you can walk to.”

“Each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories. Moonlight spins a shroud about me.”

“Heart and head are contrary historians.”

“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.”

“The trouble with miracles is, they don't last long.”

“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.”

“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow.”

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

“I have to tell you I love living in a world without clocks. The shackles are gone. I’m a puppy unleashed in a meadow of time. -- Stargirl”

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

“I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.”

“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.”

“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?”

“She laughed, and the desert sang.”

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

“She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.”

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

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

“Friendship isn't always sunnyside up.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.”

“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.”

“In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew”

“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.”

“She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music.
She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.”

“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.”

“Everybody has an angel hiding inside. When you die, your angel comes out. You can die, but not your angel. Your angel never dies.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 her self respect - well, that’s a trophy enough for a guy’s ego, huh?”

“If we are destined to be together again, be happy to know you’ll be getting the real me, not some blubbering half me.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Nobody knows who said it first, but somebody must have: 'Kid's gotta be a maniac.”

“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.”

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

“He tapped my chest. 'Happy is here.' He tapped his own chest. 'Here.'
I looked down past my chin. 'Inside?'
'Inside.'
It was getting crowded in there. First angel. Now happy. It seemed there was more to me than cabbage and turnips.”

“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?”

“She's in tenth grade,' he said. 'I hear she's been homeschooled till now.'
Maybe that explains it,' I said.”

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