Gary D. Schmidt Quotes
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I handed the test in five minutes before the end of the day. Mrs. Baker took it calmly, then reached into her bottom drawer for an enormous red pen with a wide felt tip. "Stand here and we'll see how you've done," she said, which is sort of like a dentist handing you a mirror and saying, "Sit here and watch while I drill a hole in your tooth.
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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.
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I saw my town as if I had just arrived. It was as if I was waking up. You see houses and buildings every day, and you walk by them on your way to something else, and you hardly see. You hardly notice they're even there, mostly because there's something else going on right in front of your face, But when the town itself becomes the thing that is going on right in front of your face, it all changes, and you're not just looking at a house, but at what's happened in that house before you were born.
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A comedy isn't about being funny," said Mrs. Baker. "We talked about this before." "A comedy is about character who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all. That's how I know." "Suppose you can't see it?" "That's the daring part," said Mrs. Baker.
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There's no pleasure in getting to be an old coot unless you have some fun along the way.
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Whatever it means to be a friend, taking a black eye for someone has to be in it.
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When a girl holds a rose up to you, you run better, let me tell you.
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Think of the sound you make when you let go after holding your breath for a very, very long time. Think of the gladdest sound you know: the sound of dawn on the first day of spring break, the sound of a bottle of Coke opening, the sound of a crowd cheering in your ears because you're coming down to the last part of a race--and you're ahead. Think of the sound of water over stones in a cold stream, and the sound of wind through green trees on a late May afternoon in Central Park. Think of the sound of a bus coming into the station carrying someone you love. Then put all those together.
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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.
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I think something must happen to you when you get into eight grade. Like the Doug Swieteck's Brother Gene switches on and you become a jerk. Which may have been Hamlet, Prince of Denmark's problem, who, besides having a name that makes him sound like a breakfast special at Sunnyside Morning Restaurant--something between a ham slice and a three-egg omelet--didn't have the smarts to figure out that when someone takes the trouble to come back from beyond the grave to tell you that he's been murdered, it's probably behooveful to pay attention--which is the adjectival form.
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Mr. Powell raised an eyebrow. 'I'm a librarian,' he said. 'I always know what I'm talking about.
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In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.
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Sometimes--and I know it doesn't last for anything more than a second--sometimes there can be perfect understanding between two people who can't stand each other. He smiled, and I smiled, and we put the Timex watches on, and we watched the seconds flit by.
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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
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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.
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And it really doesn't matter if we're under our desks with our hands over our heads or not, does it? No, said Mrs. Baker. It doesn't really matter. So, why are we practicing? She thought for a minute. Because it gives comfort, she said. People like to think that if they're prepared then nothing bad can really happen. And perhaps we practice because we feel as if there's nothing else we can do because sometimes it feels as if life is governed by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
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Creativity is a god who comes around only when he pleases, and it isn't very often. But when he does come around, he sits at my desk and folds his wings and I offer him whatever he wants.
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(The raindrops) played across the coast all through the night, until the soft new day shrugged itself awake, tried on amethyst and lavender for a while, and finally decided on pale yellow.
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Talk is only silence that ain't workin' well.
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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.
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Okay, so maybe sometimes the real world is smiles and miracles.
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OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not like I was reading books or anything.
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There is no Art made without power, and there is no reason for Art to be made except for power.
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Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?
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A comedy isn’t about being funny...a comedy is about characters who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all.
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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.
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You know, when someone has been crying, something gets left in the air. It's not something you can see or smell, or feel. Or draw. But it's there.
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Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.
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Did you find yourself?" "What?" said my sister. "Did you find yourself?" "She found me," I said.
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...and she ran out of the diesel combustion and right to me and we held each other and we were not empty at all. "Holling," she said. "I was so afraid I wouldn't fine you." "I was standing right here, Heather." I said. "I'll always be standing right here.
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