Quotes from Louis Sachar

I jog in the morning and then write for about two hours. There are times when I'm really excited and can't wait to get back to it. But there are days when I don't know what's coming next, and I really have to force it.

'The Cardturner,' while it has bridge in it, you certainly don't need to know how to play bridge to read it. It's basically a book about relationships - between Alton and his great-uncle, and Alton and his friends, and how it changes his life.

You make the decision: Whom did God punish?

My parents played bridge, and I remember being fascinated watching them. I sometimes got a chance to sit in on a hand, which I loved. But then I didn't actually play on my own for about 30 years.

When I wrote 'Sideways Stories from Wayside School' I never expected it to be published. It was kind of a hobby. Now, it's a job, but it's a job I like very much.

When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.

You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy.

I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books.

The impossible is more believable than the highly improbable.

Love is different from most things. If I gave my piece of chalk to someone, then I wouldn't have it anymore. But when I give my love to someone, I end up with more love than I started with. The more love you give away, the more you have left.

We may be surrounded by some greater reality, to which we are oblivious. And even if we could somehow perceive it in some entirely new way, it is extremely doubtful we would be able to comprehend what we perceived.

When you spend your whole life living in a hole," he said, "the only way you can go is up.

An idea doesn't die, said Trapp. It exists somewhere, in its own dimension, waiting to be perceived.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

It's funny how a person can be right all the time and still be wrong.

Wayside school is falling down, falling down, falling down, Wayside school is falling down my fair lady. Kids go splat as they hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground, Kids go splat as the hit the ground my fair lady . Broken bones and blood and gore, blood and gore, blood and gore, Broken bones and blood and gore my fair lady. We don't have to go to school no more, school no more, school no more, We don't have to go to school no more my fair lady.

Sometimes people can learn a lot about each other just by sitting in silence.

Doesn't every kid want to dig a hold to China? Didn't you? What about Chinese children?

Give me a dollar or I'll spit on you.

Life will deal me many different hands, some good, some bad (maybe they've already been dealt), but from here on in, I'll be turning my own cards. —Alton Richard

When anything bad happens to me or someone I know, I always know who to blame. My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

Now you be careful in the real world said Armpit Not everyone is as nice as us.

Nothing in life is easy.

He could hardly lift his spoon during breakfast, and then he was out on the lake, his spoon soon replaced by a shovel.