Gary D. Schmidt > Quotes

“Mr. Powell raised an eyebrow. 'I'm a librarian,' he said. 'I always know what I'm talking about.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

“Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn't sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“When gods die, they die hard. It's not like they fade away, or grow old, or fall asleep. They die in fire and pain, and when they come out of you, they leave your guts burned. It hurts more than anything you can talk about. And maybe worst of all is, you're not sure if there will ever be another god to fill their place. Or if you'd ever want another god to fill their place. You don't want the fire to go out inside you twice.”
― Gary Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“You know how teachers are. If they get you to take out a book they love too, they're yours for life.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“Whatever it means to be a friend, taking a black eye for someone has to be in it.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“You know, there are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say?

Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“It's not the solution, Mr. Canton. It's the path to the solution that's fascinating.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“The world turns and the world spins, the tide runs in and the tide runs out, and there is nothing in the world more beautiful and more wonderful in all its evolved forms than two souls who look at each other straight on. And there is nothing more woeful and soul-saddening than when they are parted...everything in the world rejoices in the touch, and everything in the world laments in the losing.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

“You can't just skip the boring parts."
"Of course I can skip the boring parts."
"How do you know they're boring if you don't read them?"
"I can tell."
"Then you can't say you've read the whole play."
"I think I can live a happy life, Meryl Lee, even if I don't read the boring parts of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark."
"Who knows?" she said. "Maybe you can't.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“Maybe the first time that you know you really care about something is when you think about it not being there,and when you know-you really know-that the emptinessis as much as inside you as outside you.For it falls out,that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it;but being lacked and lost,why,then we rack the value,then we find the virtue that possesion would not show us while it was ours.That's when I knew for the first time that I really did love my sister.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“We were just about the last ones to leave. Reverend Ballou took Joseph’s hand to shake it, and Joseph said, “How much of that story is true?” Reverend Ballou considered this. “I think it all has to be true, or none of it,” he said. “The angels?” said Joseph. “Really?” “Why not?” said Reverend Ballou. “Because bad things happen,” said Joseph. “If there were angels, then bad things wouldn’t happen.” “Maybe angels aren’t always meant to stop bad things.” “So what good are they?” “To be with us when bad things happen.” Joseph looked at him. “Then where the hell were they?” he said. I thought Reverend Ballou was going to start bawling.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“So you want to tell me what a sixth grader was doing in the eighth-grade side of the locker room, in a eighth-grade fight?" he said.
"Winning," I said.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And that’s when I started crying. Crying like a kindergarten kid in front of everyone. Crying because Joseph wasn’t just my friend. I had his back. And he had mine. That’s what greater love is.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“And she glowed with light like the brightest planet in the darkest sky.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“Sometimes it's like that. You know something good is coming, and even though it's not even close yet, still, just knowing it's coming is enough to make you snort and nicker. Sort of." -Jack”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Joseph just listened. It was like he was dragging every word about Jupiter into himself so he could remember it and treasure it in his heart.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“I knelt down, and Jupiter put out both her hands and pulled my ears. “Jackie,” said Jupiter. “That’s right,” I said. “Jackie.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not like I was reading books or anything.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“The light made the snowballs look yellow. Or at least I hoped that was the cause.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“« Around and around, and the sharp stars watched. And the low moon. And Jupiter over the mountains. »”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“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.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“On Saturday mornings during deliveries, I'd practice picking out new words in Jane Eyre, sounding out the ones that needed sounding out—and I'm not lying, there were plenty. "'A new servitude! There is something in that,' I soliloquized." I mean, who talks like that? Do you know how long it takes to sound out a word like soliloquized? And even after you do, you have no idea what the stupid word means except that it probably just means "said," which is what stupid Charlotte Brontë should have said in the first place. When I delivered Mrs. Mason's groceries, she saw that I had Jane Eyre stuck under my arm. "Oh," she said, "that was my favorite novel in school." "It was?" I soliloquized.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now