Jerry Spinelli Quotes

Her smile put the sunflower to shame.

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow.

if you learn to hate one or two persons... you'll soon hate millions of people.

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow.

Everybody has an angel hiding inside. When you die, your angel comes out. You can die, but not your angel. Your angel never dies.

When you own nothing, it's easy to let things go.

Life is populated with scarecrows—all those people and things that seem so scary and trouble our sleep. Isn't it nice to know that most of them turn out to be made of nothing but straw?

Who are you?' I didn't understand the question. I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?' I gave him my name. 'Stopthief.

How much better might human communication be if words were as precious as diamonds? If each of us were allotted only 100 words per day?

We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home.

A strong relationship is an honest relationship, and no honest relationship is all peaches and cream. Love is the key. Where love abides, anger is but a passing visitor.

I faced the gaudy sunflower on her canvas bag -- it looked hand-painted and at last my eyes fell into hers. I said, 'Thanks for the card.' Her smile put the sunflower to shame. She walked off.

Because life doesn't always happen according to a timetable or calendar. And feelings can't be scheduled.

Many girls have been romanced under the moon, and I don’t mean to say moonlight is overrated, but few I think have known the magic of a sunrise kiss.

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?

In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew

She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.

Whom do I write for? I write for the story. Each story, it seems to me, knows best how it should be told. As I once put my ear to the railroad track, I listen now for the voice of my story.

When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.

Home is everything you can walk to.

You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people.

We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past "weird" and "strange" and "goofy." Her ways knocked us off balance.

Write what you care about. If you do that, you stand the best chance of doing your best writing.

Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.

Why fit in when you're born to stand out?

This was the ghetto: where children grow down instead of up.

I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.

You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.

I feel like I'm playing chess underwater. The pieces keep floating away. I don't know where things are. I can't figure out tomorrow.

No one's hurt is too small, no worry too removed, no blessing so elusive that it cannot be seen by the eyes in the back of the human heart.

Friendship isn't always sunnyside up.

I have to tell you I love living in a world without clocks. The shackles are gone. I’m a puppy unleashed in a meadow of time. -- Stargirl

Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.

She's in tenth grade,' he said. 'I hear she's been homeschooled till now.' Maybe that explains it,' I said.

When bad things turn good, the reason can usually be found in the human heart—sometimes in the hearts of great masses of people, sometimes in the heart of a solitary soul.

Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow.

It (enchantment) started when the earth was born. It never stops. It is, always. It's just here.

Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she's gone. I'm not me anymore.

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

Every name is real. That's the nature of names.

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.

It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.

Hey, this is it—right now!—the time when you find out who you are and what you can do. And how will you ever know if you don't try new stuff?

His smile was so wide he’d have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway

Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.

I think of the flower in the bud: huddled, compressed, dark. Yet somehow it feels the night, knows moon from sun. It waits...waits.

In every age there are plenty of people around to remind you what you cannot possibly do. Thank goodness, for these naysayers provide a priceless service: They spur...us to achieve great things.

Whos love do you cherrish more? Hers or theirs? when you deside that, it's all downhill from there.

She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.