Walter Dean Myers

“The idea of voluntary segregation went against every value I had been taught. What did being born black have to do with excellence?”

“All the authors I studied, all the historical figures, with the exception of George Washington Carver, and all those figures I looked upon as having importance were white men. I didn't mind that they were men, or even white men. What I did mind was that being white seemed to play so important a part in the assigning of values.”

“People who want to hate you can find something in you they don't like. They have a talent for doing that.”

“What some people wanted was sometimes too hard to get, and the stress of trying was sometimes too hard to deal with... Maybe doing well in life was just too hard for some people.”

“But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.”

“(L)ife is like walking between two tall buildings on a tightrope. For some, the rope is wide enough and the walk is easy. For others, it's narrow and hard and maybe there's a strong wind blowing through their days”

“Life is going to be harder for some people. It's going to be harder at different times in our lives. But if you're not ready to die today, then you're going to be responsible for tomorrow, whether you like it or not.”

“Hard work by itself isn't worth two cents on a rainy day if it doesn't give you a good life.”

“Sometimes everybody touches in the dark. You touch to see what you can stand to touch, what you can to feel with your fingers probing parts you never though you could probably probe" - Gray”

“I wanted to love my father. I wanted to, but I didn't. Sometimes I didn't even like him. he hadn't been a guy you could really get next to, because in a way he was never where you thought he was.”

“Sometimes, when things look terrible...you just need to find the right move to turn the whole game around. When you find it you feel great.”

“The lure of seeing new places, different ways of life, has been almost irresistible.”

“Reading is not optional.”

“Life laughs at me now,Sad, forsaken clown.Dreams crumble and fall.They die silently.Where is there to turn to?Where can I find mercy?Love is what I needed,All I wanted from this life.―Carmen, singing "Destiny Theme”

“Love came to me, but itJust wasn't for me.It touched my heart and left itLying on the shore, andLove smiled at me, but itJust wasn't for me.It glanced my way with pity, butI soon knew it had other plans.Once again my heart was broken;I was all alone toMourn.―Carmen, singing the reprise to "Love Has Flown Away”

“We all think we're different, but when it comes around, we end up needing the same things. Somebody to love us. Somebody to respect us.”

“Love came easy, but it just wasn't for me.It flew away like swallows on a summer evening.Love sang softly, but it just wasn't to me.Was I a fool to give my love, to give my soul, and more away?My heart aches with longing, cries each night,As I just fall apart.—Carmen, singing "Love Has Flown Away”

“We’re suggesting that [kids are] missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.”

“If I'm going to have a fight I got to see the win in it so I'll know what I'm fighting for.”

“What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn't kill Mr. Nesbitt.”

“They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can’t kill yourself no matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment.”

“The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that’s not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie.”

“The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.”

“My job is to make sure the law works for you as well as against you, and to make you a human being in the eyes of the jury.”

“i just desperately wish this was only a movie.”

“he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't guilty.”

“When you're young, you make mistakes. The big thing that's different now is that when I was a kid, you could survive your mistakes. We didn't have guns. Today, kids have access to guns. The same kids that would have been in trouble and gotten a stern talking-to are now going to jail for fifteen or twenty years. Instead of bloody noses there are bodies lying in the street with chalk outlines around them. The values are basically the same, but it's easier to mess up.”

“There was a baseball game on but it didn't look real. It was guys in uniforms playing games on a deep green field. They were playing baseball as if baseball was important and as if all the world wasn't in jail, watching them from a completely different world.”

“Wherever your heart rests There I will live and be blessed I've tried to line up the things I Needed to say but now my feelings just Tumble from me. I am half foolish, Half drunk with wanting you With wanting to take your hand And leap into the darkness of whatever Life will bring. Love makes me Brave and without love I'm made Nothing.”

“Forever in your armsIs where I want to beHolding you closeWithin the spaceThat once held only me...Forever in your warmthThe place for me and youI feel the sunOur life's just begunI know you feel it too”

“Yes, she is the fruit that willSustain me and yes, she bringsA rain that I know can chillBut it is a rain so sweet and singsA song my soul insistsThat I follow, if I would existAs more than I have ever, ever beenIf my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin”

“My life is not packaged,Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jaggedEdges that cut even my friends.”

“Can you become The hope I need? Can you help me be More than it is written in my future Or past? Is there another me to find?”

“And what I was feeling was the wonderOf being more than me, of being moreThan mere here and now allowedI had become a shining star, a burning novaExploded with loveFlying through an endlesslyExpanding universeAway from the me that wasToward a me that is beyondUnderstanding.”

“On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again”

“If anyone could look into my head See or feel the dread that has captured Me or see within this sad, unhappy brain They would only turn away Turn away.”

“the beast is the monster that destroys your dream”

“Drew, your enemies can mess your life up,' he said. 'Or they can make it easy for you to do it to yourself.' —Fletch”

“In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to be in the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right. The strange thing was that everybody was feeling the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play...I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen.”

“People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...But it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special...I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way—you know, some of those Asian people say they don't kill nothing, but they'll take a fish out of water and lay it on the ground and then say it just died on its own—you can do that with a dream, too. And sometimes you can get so frustrated, you feel so bad about your dream, that you go on and kill it yourself. When you do that, you're killing a piece of yourself, too." —Mr. Cephus”

“No matter what...ball made my heart beat faster, made me want to jump up and down and be Superman. That's what life was about anyway, being Superman and living like life itself was important. Basketball made my life important.”

“Maybe being loved wasn't enough; maybe there was something else you needed not to get in trouble.”

“You're not getting in anything, so between us it's going to be outcest, and that's just another word for friendship. —Jocelyn Lawson”

“If you know you don't have a win, then there's no use for you being in the game.”

“Everything in life is made up...You make up that you are happy. You make up that you are sad. You make up that you are in love. If you don't make up your own life, who's going to make it up for you? It's bad enough when you die and everybody can make up their own stories about you. —Mr. Hooft”

“Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were.”

“pain is the only real emotion. Everything else can be taken away. Love,happiness,joy can always be taken away. Even old sadness can be dissipated if you pee enough ha-ha into it. But pain is pure”

“La Misma ola vagabunda que te lleva te devuelva.”

“Violence was just as much about WHAT was happening as it was how it happened.”

“Yeah, that's funny, huh?...Something hurts you real bad and you get used to it. Like being hurt becomes part of who you are.”