Gennifer Choldenko > Quotes

“Nobody knows how things will turn out, that's why they go ahead and play the game...You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it's hardly ever what you expect.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Now I understand. When you love someone, you have to try things even if they don't make sense to anyone else.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Life is amazing, isn't it? You can't ever tell what will happen. Nobody knows until they go ahead and play the game.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Some people's brilliance is in their head. A surgeon's brilliance is in her hands. But there are people who have brilliant hearts. They shine right through them.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period

“People are responsible for themselves. All you can do is try to inspire each person to be his best self.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Homework

“Oh, we have everyone who is bad. Except Bonnie and Clyde on account of their being dead,” she says.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“What they say about females being the weaker sex is the biggest lie in the world.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“You have to wait for good things to happen—wait and wait and work so hard—but bad things occur out of the blue, like fire alarms triggered in the dead of night, blaring randomly, a shock of sound, a chatter of current from which there is no turning back.
There's only the day that starts like any other, and when it ends, it leaves you shaken, wobbly, unsure of where you stand, the patch of ground that holds your feet dissolving, disintegrating from under you. Often there's a sign, a harbinger of what's to come. Sometimes there are many signs, like black crows scattered in the road, but they blend into the scenery on the path ahead. You can only spot them when you look back.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, No Passengers Beyond This Point

“I’m big as a linebacker, and a seven-year-old girl treats me like her errand boy. Does she smell weakness on me?”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Pete were here, he’d whistle.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Once you slip on the devil's dancing shoes, they aren't so easy to get off.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman

“Errand Boy”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“I haven’t seen you for three whole months,” I say. “Two months, twenty-two days, twenty-two days,” Natalie calls out.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“My face turns red just seeing her. She’s a looker. If Pete were here, he’d whistle.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Tall for Her Age”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Now I’m five foot eleven and a half inches—as tall as my mom and a good two inches taller than my dad. My father tells people I’ve grown so much, he’s going to put my supper into pickle jars and sell it under the name Incredible Growth Formula.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Being a girl is complicated. But it isn't all bad, I have to admit.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Chasing Secrets

“I’m walking by the cell house now. Row after row of dark barred windows, all spooky quiet. What goes on in there? I know the convicts aren’t allowed to talk, but how could some 300 men not make more sound? Just breathing makes noise, you know. And all those windows? The cons don’t sit around watching us . . . do they? Across the road from the cell house is a fancy mansion with flowerpots on the steps and curtains in the windows. The only thing missing from the house is a lawn and a tree. That’s the only tip this is Alcatraz. There’s nothing but cement clear up to the door. Even so, it’s strange how one side of the road is so different from the other—high society on the left, grim and grisly on the right.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Once when Natalie was little, a doctor told us what she had was contagious. If we kept her at home with us, you could catch it from her. He said we should send her away to a ranch in Arizona where she would be quarantined so as not to infect others.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Shines My Shoes

“They darn socks too?” “Yes, as a matter of fact. Do a better job than your mom too. Though don’t you dare tell her I said that.” “Murderers outsew my mother?” “Apparently so.” My dad laughs.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Natalie’s not buggy, she just thinks a different way.” The words shoot out of me before I can stop them. I know my dad would not like me talking to the warden and Trixle like this. “Is that so?” Trixle asks. “Yes, sir.” I nod to the warden. “It is.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Shines My Shoes

“My dad’s an electrician, for Pete’s sake.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“None of us gets long on this lush and lovely planet. Don't relinquish any more of your precious life to whoever it is who has hurt you.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Orphan Eleven

“that crazy Hitler guy in Germany who doesn’t want Jewish people to compete in the Olympics.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Throws Me a Curve

“Dakota?” Izzy asks. “Am I smart enough to be a nerd?”
― Gennifer Choldenko, One-Third Nerd

“There’s a Lego in my bum which fits with the Lego in my chair and when I sit down to write, I hear the satisfying snap of the two pieces fitting together.”
― Gennifer Choldenko

“When’s your birthday, Piper?” I ask. “November sixteenth.” “1922?” “Yep.” “Natalie, what day of the week was Piper born?” “Thursday,” Nat says without looking up. “That right?” I ask Piper. Piper doesn’t answer, but her eyes open wider.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

“Courage comes from your heart, not your fist.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Chasing Secrets

“Mr.”
― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts