Quotes from Gary D. Schmidt

Mrs. Daugherty was keeping my bowl of cream of wheat hot, and she had a special treat with it, she said. It was bananas. In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.

The world is Trouble...and Grace. That is all there is.

Around and around, and the sharp stars watched. And the low moon. And Jupiter over the mountains. »

There's no pleasure in getting to be an old coot unless you have some fun along the way.

She came over and looked at the picture. Then she took my hand. You know what that feels like? Like what the astronauts will feel when they step onto the moon for the very first time.

Maybe this happens to you every day, but I think it was the first time I could hardly wait to show something that I'd done to someone who would care besides my mother. You know how that feels?

We were both chumps. But you know what? It's not so bad when you're chumps together.

If Romeo had never met Juliet, maybe they both would have still been alive, but what they would have been alive for is the question Shakespeare wants us to answer.

Did you find yourself?" "What?" said my sister. "Did you find yourself?" "She found me," I said.

And she glowed with light like the brightest planet in the darkest sky.

Maybe this happens to you every day, but I think it was the first time I could hardly wait to show something that I'd done to someone who would care besides my mother. You know how that feels?

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." And that's when I started crying. Crying like a kindergarten kid in front of everyone. Crying because Joseph wasn't just my friend. I had his back. And he had mine. That's what greater love is.

Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.

I love the sound of a brand-new bottle of coke when you pry the lid off and it starts to fizz. Whenever I hear that sound, I think of roses, and of sitting together with someone you care about and of Romeo and Juliet waking up somewhere and saying to each other, weren't we jerks? And then having all that be over. That's what I think of when I hear the sound of a brand-new bottle of Coke being opened

We were both chumps. But you know what? It's not so bad when you're chumps together.

Maybe the Snowy Heron is going to come off pretty badly when the planes come together. Maybe. But he's still proud and beautiful. His head is high, and he's got this sharp beak that's facing out to the world. He's okay for now.

So you just went in and told him to give you two Cokes and he gave them to you?" "No, I didn't just go in and tell him to give me two Cokes. I asked for a Coke for me and a Coke for the skinny thug sitting on the library steps.

A southwest blow on ye and blister you all o'er!' 'The red plague rid you!' 'Toads, beetles, bats, light on you!' 'As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed with raven's feather from unwholesome fen drop on you.' 'Strange stuff' 'Thou jesting monkey thou' 'Apes with foreheads villainous low' 'Pied ninny' 'Blind mole...' -The Caliban Curses

You can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him.

Do you ever wonder what it's like to be so angry that you...And then something happens, and after that, everyone figures that's what you're like, and that's what you're always going to be, and so you just decide to be it? But the whole time you're thinking, Am I going to be like him? Or am I already like him? And then you get angrier, because maybe you are, and you want... He stopped. He wiped at his eyes. I'm not lying. My brother wiped at his eyes.

How come when you're feeling good like this, something always happens to wreck it all? How come?

I almost cried. But I didn't, because if you're in seventh grade and you cry while wearing a blue floral cape and yellow tights with white feathers on the butt, you just have to curl up and die somewhere in a dark alley.

Lizzie Bright Griffin, do you ever wish the world would just go ahead and swallow you whole?" "Sometimes I do," she said, and then smiled. "but sometimes I figure I should just go ahead and swallow it.

When you find something that's whole, you do what you can to keep it that way. And when you fins something that isn't, then maybe it's not a bad idea to try to make it whole again. Maybe.