Wendelin Van Draanen citations

Page 2

“I miss school.
What’s wrong with me?”

“The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.”

“It was beyond embarrassing or humiliating or even mortifying. It was ego-slaying!”

“A painting is more than the sum of its parts.”

“Proper lighting is everything, Julianna.”

“I was slipping, man, and it was definetly time to get a grip.”

“It's funny how you can think you know someone pretty well, and then something happens or they do something that makes you understand that you didn't really know them at all.”

“Julie always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me.”

“I am a runner. That's what I do. That's who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.”

“What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn't be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet—only science would put them on the same tree.”

“My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating. Floating in midair. And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is the other person's eyes. They're connected to yours by some invisible physical force, and they hold you fast while the rest of the world swirls and twirls and falls completely away.”

“I asked you to conquer your fear, but all you did was give in to it. If you were in love with her, that would be one thing. Love is something to be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing. So she talks too much, so she's too enthused about every little thing, so what? Get in, get your question answered, and get out. Stand up to her, for cryin' out loud!”

“I'd never looked at our house, or even our side of the street, and said, Oh! I wish we lived in the new development—those houses are so much newer, so much better! This is where I'd grown up. This was my home.”

“"Yeah, right. I know what's really going on: Heather's hired you to kill me, hasn't she?"
"Sammy!"
"Why else would you catapult me through the air and feed me to a man-eating cot?"”

“I told about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. “It's that way with people, too,” he said, “only with people it's sometimes that the whole is less than the sum of the parts.””

“…something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.”