Christopher Paul Curtis > Quotes

“...that was Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things to Have a Funner LIfe and Make a Better Liar Out of Yourself Number 83...If a Adult Tells You Not to Worry, and You Weren't Worried Before, You Better Hurry Up and Start 'Cause You're Already Running Late.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“There comes a time when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“Rules and Things Number 63: Never, Ever Say Something Bad About Someone You Don't Know--Especially When You're Around a Bunch of Strangers. You Never Can Tell Who Might Be Kin to That Person or Who Might Be a Lip-Flapping, Big-Mouth Spy.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“A bud is a flower-to-be. A flower in waiting. Waiting for just the right warmth and care to open up. It's a little fist of love waiting to unfold and be seen by the world. And that's you.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“As soon as I got into the library I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I got a whiff of the leather on all the old books, a smell that got real strong if you picked one of them up and stuck your nose real close to it when you turned the pages. Then there was the the smell of the cloth that covered the brand-new books, books that made a splitting sound when you opened them. Then I could sniff the the paper, that soft, powdery, drowsy smell that comes off the page in little puffs when you're reading something or looking at some pictures, kind of hypnotizing smell.

I think it's the smell that makes so many folks fall asleep in the library. You'll see someone turn a page and you can imagine a puff of page powder coming up real slow and easy until it starts piling on a person's eyelashes, weighing their eyes down so much they stay down a little longer after each blink and finally making them so heavy that they just don't come back up at all. Then their mouths open and their heads start bouncing up and down like they're bobbing in a big tub of of water for apples and before you know it... they're out cold and their face thunks smack-dab on the book.

That's the part that makes librarians the maddest. They get real upset if folks start drooling in the books”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“There's one good thing about getting in trouble: It seems like you do it in steps. It seems like you don't just end up in trouble but that you kind of ease yourself into it. It also seems like the worse the trouble is that you get into, the more steps it takes to get there. Sort of like you're getting a bunch of little warnings on the way; sort of like if you really wanted to you could turn around.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

“No sir, I don't know why, but my eyes don't cry no more.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“Having a little pee in your pants had to be better than being dinner for some redneck.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

“Byron says he won't go there. He give Kenny and Joey a story about "Wool Pooh," the supposed evil twin of Winnie-the-Pooh. They believe him, but Kenny still wants to go.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

“Six is a bad time too 'cause that's when some real scary things start to happen to your body, it's around then that your teeth start to coming a-loose in your mouth.

You wake up one morning and it seems like your tongue is the first one to notice that something strange is going on, 'cause as soon as you get up there it is pushing and rubbing up against one of your front teeth and I'll be doggoned if that tooth isn't the littlest bit wiggly.

At first you think it's kind of funny, but the tooth keeps getting looser and looser and one day, in the middle of pushing the tooth back and forth and squinching your eyes shut, you pull it clean out. It's the scariest thing you can think of 'cause you lose control of your tongue at the same time and no matter how hard you try to stop it, it won't leave the new hold in your mouth alone, it keeps digging around in the spot where that tooth used to be.

You tell some adult about what's happening but all they do is say it's normal. You can't be too sure, though, 'cause it shakes you up a whole lot more than grown folks think it does when perfectly good parts of your body commence to loosening up and falling of off you.

Unless you're as stupid as a lamppost you've got to wonder what's coming off next, your arm? Your leg? Your neck? Every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts aren't stuck on as good as they used to be.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“Wow. Who would want a fish for a pet when they could have a turtle?!”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

“There's a thin, blurry line between humor and tragedy.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Mighty Miss Malone

“Just like when there's a time that a smart person knows enough is enough, there's a time when you know you've got to fight.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“. . . people use tricks to get you to think the way they do or take away something you have that they want. One way they do that is to interrupt your normal way of thinking and take you by the hand and guide you down the path they want you to take. Father says they make you take a teeny-weeny step in their direction, and then they start to nudge you a little further down the path and before you know it, you're running full speed with them in a direction that you probably wouldn't have gone alone.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Mighty Miss Malone

“Now, your mother and I made a deal when we first got married that if either one of us ever watched the 'wunnerful, wunnerful' Lawrence Welk Show or listened to country music the other one got to get a free divorce.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

“You can tell you're reading a really good book when you forget all about everything else and know you'll die if you get to at least the end of the chapter”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Mighty Miss Malone

“having someone who likes you so much that they think everything you say is the truth has got to be a liar’s paradise”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“The big steel wheels creaked a couple times, then started moving.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“Hoping is such hard work. It tires you out and you never seem to get any kind of reward. Hoping feels like you’re a balloon that has a pinhole that slowly leaks air.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Mighty Miss Malone

“Things aren't ever what they seem to be when you first look at them. What's important is that you keep your mind wide open and try to understand what's going on from a lot of different angles.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bucking the Sarge

“Doggone it all!”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Elijah of Buxton

“A Mile A Minute”
― Christopher Paul Curtis

“inside or the outside. I touched paper. I spread”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“You know, there's something especially lonely about a gold medal hanging all by itself on a bedroom wall, something that says "fluke," or "beginner's luck," or "one in a million," but two gold medals, now that says something completely different. That says, "Oh, yeah, baby, this is the real deal!”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bucking the Sarge

“But I was kind of surprised that God would send a saver to me in such raggedy clothes.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

“Every once in a while, Momma would make me go to Sunday school with Joey. Even though it was just a bunch of singing and coloring in coloring books and listening to Mrs. Davidson, I had learned one thing. I learned about getting saved. I learned how someone could come to you when you were feeling real, real bad and could take all of your problems away and make you feel better. I learned that the person who saved you, your personal saver, was sent by God to protect you and to help you out.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

“cereal and went out into the”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

“The next thing about the air in the library is that no other place smells anything like it. If you close your eyes and try to pick out what it is that you’re sniffing you’re only going to get confused, because all the smells have blended together and turned themselves into a different one. As soon as I got into the library I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I got a whiff of the leather on all the old books, a smell that got real strong if you picked one of them up and stuck your nose real close to it when you turned the pages. Then there was the smell of the cloth that covered the brand-new books, the books that made a splitting sound when you opened them. Then I could sniff the paper, that soft, powdery, drowsy smell that comes off the pages in little puffs when you’re reading something or looking at some pictures, a kind of hypnotizing smell.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

“his sermons go on so long that some of the time you feel like begging, "Take me now, Jesus," 'bout halfway through 'em.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Elijah of Buxton

“We were all standing in line waiting for breakfast when one of the caseworkers came in and tap-tap-tap”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy