Quotes from Jerry Spinelli

What else would you expect? Whites never go inside black's homes. Much less inside their thoughts and feelings. And blacks are just as ignorant of whites. What white kid could hate blacks after spending five minutes in the Beale's house? And what bleak kid could hat whites after answering Mrs. Pickwell's dinner whistle? But the East Enders stayed in the east and the West Enders stayed in the west, and the less they knew about each other, the more they invented.

Give me a minute,' I told her. I sat on the cold, clumpy ground. I turned my back on the smudgy sunrise so that I was facing west, facing you. I closed my eyes and I did something I've been thinking about: I sent you a message. A question. I hope you receive it. Then I got up and we left.

I'm Uri," he said. "What's your name?" I gave him my name. "Stopthief.

A full moon falling on the snow lit up the world - who needed electricity?

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you're doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out

For years the strangers among us had passed sullenly in the hallways; now we looked, we nodded, we smiled.

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. In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was...

She was illusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

I saw someone running. That was all I needed. I could not walk if someone else was running. I broke loose from Uri. Others were running. It was a race! I didn't know where the finish line was, but I was determined to win. Many had shouted, stop! But no one had ever caught me. The street was getting more and more crowded as people poured into it. I streaked through the crowds. I passed other runners. I didn't care how many there were; I would beat them all. I laughed as I ran.

did not have enough substance to trigger the opening of a supermarket door

In a way more felt than thought, he sensed a connection between Nipper's absence and Dorothy's words, which had been haunting him without letup.

can forever have a now?)

Do you believe in enchanted places?" He took the pipe from his mouth and looked straight at me. "Absolutely." I was confused. "But you're a scientist. A man of science." "A man of bones. You can't be up to your eyeballs in bones and not believe in enchanted places." (p. 101)

If we happened to somehow distinguish ourselves, we quickly napped into place, like rubber bands

Happiness one last chance to happen?

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today.

We walked in silence. Yellow blooms had appeared on a cactus, and for some reason that made me incredibly sad. The purple of the mountains flowed like watercolour. (P. 103) ~ Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

She looked like a photograph from a hundred years ago.

was revolted and spellbound at the same time. Movies didn't get much better than that.

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.

Newborn leaf clusters on the surrounding trees had a look of pale green popcorn. Tufts of onion grass sprouted across the soccer field, releasing their sweet scent.

Let's bomb Fishface's house!

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.

I like people who talk a lot. Since I don't.