Jerry Spinelli (born February 1, 1941) is an American writer of children's novels that feature adolescence and early adulthood. He is best known for Maniac Magee, Stargirl and Wringer.
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 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.
It was different with you, Leo. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same.
I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.
if you learn to hate one or two persons. . . you'll soon hate millions of people.
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.
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.
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.
His smile was so wide he’d have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway
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
Letter from Mr. B: Why does a back scratch feel better coming from somebody else than if you do it yourself?
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.
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?
Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.
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.
When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.
Home is everything you can walk to.
Everybody has an angel hiding inside. When you die, your angel comes out. You can die, but not your angel. Your angel never dies.
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.
And the more you love someone, the safer it is to be mad at them. Love can handle mad, no problem.