Virginia Euwer Wolff > Quotes

“Rise to the occassion which is life!”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff

“A good book is never finished—-it goes on whispering to you from the wall.”
― Virginia Wolff

“If you dont like me, Walk away , Matter of fact Run Away”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“Some people make a bad bed, they just have to lie in it.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“You get older
and you are a whole mess of things,
new thoughts, sorry feelings,
big plans, enormous doubts,
goling along hoping and getting disappointed,
over and over again,
no wonder I don't recognize
my little crayon picture.
It appears to be me
and it is
and it is not.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“You ever laughed so hard
nobody in the world could hurt you for a minute,
no matter what they tried to do to you?”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“If you want something to grow and be so beautiful you could have a nice day just from looking at it, you have to wait.”
― Virginia Wolff, Make Lemonade

“I sure would like to get kissed.
How would that feel on my mouth,
How different would I be after,
a changed climate down in my insides?”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“I tell you this because books for young readers are so often written about that very moment: the moment of the fork. The moment the old man cannot return to.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff

“How many neighbors ignoring Jolly for her ignorance and bad luck could go down on their knees and save their kid from choking to death this afternoon while the world was going on outside in the sunshine?”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“What does the cross mean?" I ask him.
"Crucifix. I don't know exactly. Jesus hanging in agony, nailed to boards. But it's a reminder."
"Of what?"
"Well. Of—Well, evil.
That evil's always gonna be around,
and you deal with it.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“If you want something to grow
and be so beautiful you could have a nice day just from looking at it,
you have to wait.
Meanwhile you keep watering it
and it has to have sunshine
and also
you talk to it.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction — so we are told.”
― Virginia Wolff

“While I fold laundry I memorize things for school,
dates of wars:
French ones, African ones, Russian ones,
battles of all ugly kinds.
It's a shame to have us hopeful young students
learn these horrible things.
Exactly the kind of behaving
they have told us over and over again not to do
is what the history class is full of,
full-grown adults making these wars:
killing each other for land, for religions,
for greed and more greed,
Why bother to have children and educate them
and invent things to make their lives better,
just to send them off to war and get slaughtered?”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff

“I want to be the one to say:
"This is what I'll do,
this is how I'll do it,
and now see? I've done it.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, This Full House

“We weren't put on Earth to exclude each other.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“She isn't easy to have for a mom,
she has too many opinions for one family,
she can make me want to slam doors and stick out my tongue
but I don't do it because of the long run.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“I tell him he's a good boy. He says he knows it.
"Good boy sure," he says. I want to dig down way far into his brain and find out some of his details.
How does he know? What makes him so convinced?”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“Car horns honk way down on the street.
Human life: honking, honking
wanting everything to go our way.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, This Full House

“One of the people on my Mom's Council,
he used to be a boxer.
My Mom always says he always says Get up on the 1.
You don't want them to count to 2
'cause then it's easy to count 3
while you go on being down. Always
Get up on the 1.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff

“In Biology Patrick and I were like two pencils in a box,
parallel but not alive to each other,
my guilty feelings stifling my common sense.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“And so I came on the discovery
with no warning.
Religion must be for trusting.
And trusting, what is that for?
I figured it out: It helps you go on
when you can't go on.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“ambivalent. To feel two ways about the same thing,
'Ambi-' from the Greek, meaning 'both.'
'valent,' from the Latin, meaning 'going.'
Remember: Feeling ambivalent
is a crucial step in the process of living thoughtfully.
When we notice our ambivalence and examine it,
then our minds can thrive.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, This Full House

“Because I don't think I have a handle on how to write for grown-ups. The grown-up publishing world is so fraught with one-upsmanship, scorn and snobbery. I did write an adult novel. Thank goodness it went out of print. I think we kids' authors still start out with hope every morning. We honor our audience.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff

“He could add something to the list of things you weren't supposed to do. Don't get hurt, don't get dirty, don't get drunk, don't get scared, don't count on it. You ended up doing all of them.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff

“You know how you want something so much
and you're afraid of it too?”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer

“Why didn't you tell us the first day?"
And Jolly goes, "Well, nobody told me—I didn't know—"
She goes, "Nobody told me. You know?"

And when she says this
it's like a flat tire got fixed in my head
and I suddenly see the sign of her life: "Nobody told me."
I look in my brain and I make a brief list
of who's sposed to tell you things.
It's your folks
and your teachers
and your girlfriends
and your coach if you have a sport.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade

“You want my honest opinion?" she says.
I've already heard too many, but she goes ahead:
"LaVaughn, I like you for being uppity. That's partly why we're here. Right?"
"Huh?" I ask her.

"Here in this room we're obligated to be uppity.
That's our purpose here. We're supposed to change.
Those friends of yours can't appreciate you.
They don't know how.”
― Virginia Euwer Wolff, True Believer