Quotes from Gary Paulsen

And the last thought he had that morning as he closed his eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.

That's all it took to solve problems - just sense.

this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath...

When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.

He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream. They had taken it all away from him now, they had turned away from him and there was nothing for him now...He was alone and there was nothing for him.

Things seemed to go back and forth between reality and imagination--except that it was all reality.

He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him. And he had to keep hoping.

Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.

the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work.

She was beautiful in a way that only wild things can be beautiful.

The person who reads can bail, but the person who doesn't fails.

You can take the man out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the man.

Brian looked back and for a moment felt afraid because the wolf was so... so right. He knew Brian, knew him and owned him and chose not to do anything to him. But the fear moved then, moved away,and Brian knew the wolf for what it was - another part of the woods, another part of all of it.

Not hope that he would be rescued--that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of tough hope.

He could see it now. Oh, yes, all as he ran in the sun, his legs liquid springs.

This is going to be murder," Fransic whispered to Mr. Trimes. "Pure murder." "I'm glad to see your confidence returning, Mr. Tucket. Just a few minutes ago you were ready to give up. Now you're talking about killing him." "I meant it the other way." "Oh.

I have a pickup truck. And I prefer to be with dogs or on my sailboat than in a car - actually, more than any other place on Earth.

Look at Inuit clothing. Their stuff still works better than Cabela's. I've made my own parkas, mukluks, footgear, and it is good to 60 degrees below zero. All I did was copy the patterns that came down from the Inuits.

A border collie saved me once when I was pinned under a horse in Colorado. And once when I went through the ice, one of my sled dogs saw me go under, and she got the rest of the team, and they pulled me out of 12 feet of water. I think that dogs offer the only form of unconditional love that's available to humans.

The essence of war is insanity. Destruction, death, women widowed, children orphaned, lands plundered, property destroyed, lives decimated - it's all bad.

School didn't work for me. I hated it.

Adults are locked into car payments and divorces and work. They haven't got time to think fresh.