Quotes from Jerry Spinelli

Ironic, Betty Lou said at last. The cereus insists on sunlight---that's why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flowers for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers. It takes from the day, I said, gives to the night.

He said even if it's too cloudy to see, the sun will still rise, it will still be there. But that's the whole point, I said. Seeing it. Is it? he said.

It was the day of the worms. That first almost-warm, after-the-rainy-night day in April, when you bolt from your house to find yourself in a world of worms. They were as numerous here in the East End as they had been in the West. The sidewalks, the streets. The very places where they didn't belong. Forlorn, marooned on concrete and asphalt, no place to burrow, April's orphans.

Stargirl began to improvise. She flung her arms to a make-believe crowd like a celebrity on parade. She waggled her fingers at the stars. She churned her fists like an egg-beater. Every action echoed down the line behind her. The three hops of the bunny became three struts of a vaudeville vamp. Then a penguin waddle. Then tippy-toed priss. Every new move brought new laughter from the line.

Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.

Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.

Every child's bedroom is as important as a telescope orbiting the planet earth or a philosopher's study.

He doesn't think. He just does. A nonthinking doer.

Every day I hold my breath until I see her. Sometimes in class, sometimes in the hallway. I can't start breathing until I see her smile at me. She always does, but the next day I'm always afraid she won't. At lunch I'm afraid she'll smile more at BT than at me. I'm afraid she'll look at him in some way that she doesn't look at me. I'm afraid that when I go to bed at night I'll still be wondering. I'm always afraid. Is that what love is - fear?

Events become feelings, feelings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.

He's so cute, I can't help myself.

You are truly focused when you're so focused that you don't know you're focused.

To a person who expects every desert to be barren sand dunes, the Sonoran must come as a surprise. Not only are there no dunes, there's no sand. At least not the sort of sand you find at the beach. The ground does have a sandy color to it, or gray, but your feet won't sink in. It's hard, as if it's been tamped. And pebbly. And glinting with -- what else -- mica.

A little hatred goes a long, long way. It grows and grows. And it's hungry. You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants. It's never satisfied. And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart and all you'll have left is a hateful heart.

Beware of solipsism Funny word. Sounds like it means love of melons or something. I looked it up. It means believing that the self is the only reality. Am I solipsist?

Live today like there's no tomorrow!

Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you each 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.

They don't live here. They live in Heaven.' Where's that?' I don't know,' I said. 'Enos says it's right here, on this side of the wall, but I never saw an angel over here. Kuba says it's in Russia. Olek says Washington America.' What's Washington America?' Enos says it's a place with no wall and no lice and lots of potatoes.

Okay, so you're not perfect. Who is? Sure, Susan makes sense. But my heart doesn't care about sense. My heart never says: _Why?_ Only: _Who?_

The kids who leave their favorite authors behind do not in fact leave us utterly abandoned, but in due time drive children of their own to the bookstore and the post office.

So, I said, when does the enchantment start? We were sitting side by side, facing the mountains. It started when the earth was born. Her eyes were closed. Her face was golden in the setting sun. It never stops. It is, always. It's just here.

So, he said, we ourselves will be the candle flames. He put his hands on his chest. Feel your hearts, how warm they are.

I understood. I suffered. But whose sake was I suffering for? I kept thinking of Señor Saguaro's question: Whose affection do you value more, hers or the others'?

I'm looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before.