Mel Mader > Mel's Quotes

“That terrified eye.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“But I wonder if even the brand-new Ford Mustang convertible comforted my father any the night my sister left for California to find herself.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“He’s falling into the water,” I said. Lucas shook his head. “No, he’s not. He’s going wherever he wants to go.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Some family,' I said. 'No one's paying attention to the mother. Who could blame her if she took off? Look at them.'

A minute or so went by, and then Mrs. Windermere said, in a voice as soft as summer blue air, 'Skinny Delivery Boy, you have it all wrong. Look how she's standing close to her little one. She's looking around to watch for the next spectacular thing that's going to come into his life.'

And I'm not lying, she was right.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“In the real world, people fall out of love little by little, not all at once. They stop looking at each other. They stop talking. They stop serving lima beans. After Walter Cronkite is finished, one of them goes for a ride in a Ford Mustang, and the other goes upstairs to the bedroom. And there is a lot of quiet in the house. And late at night, the sounds of sadness creep underneath the bedroom doors and along the dark halls.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“Mr. Ferris didn't say anything the whole time. He sat next to me and listened. And when I finished, I looked at him.
He was crying. I'm not lying. He was crying.
I don't think it was because how hard I hit him.
I know how the Black-Backed Gull feels when he looks up into the sky.
Maybe, somehow, Mr. Ferris does too.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“No one talked because we all wanted to scream.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Creativty 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.”
― Gary Schmidt

“Doug Swieteck,' Mr. Ferris said, 'do you know the basic principle of physical science?'

A trick?

'No,' I said, sort of slow.

'The basic principle of physical science is this: no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. Do you understand that?'

'I think so,' I said.

'Do you understand what the principle means?'

I shook my head.

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

“At the happy ending of the Tempest, Prospero brings the kind back togeter with his son, and finds Miranda's true love and punishes the bad duke and frees Ariel and becomes a duke himself again. Everyone - except Caliban - is happy, and everyone is forgiven, and everyone is fine, and they all sail away on calm seas. Happy endings.
That's how it is in Shakespeare.
But Shakespeare was wrong.
Sometimes there isn't a Prospero to make everything fine again.
And sometimes the quality of mercy is strained.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

“I lit a candle in a Catholic church for the first time that afternoon. Me, a Presbyterian. I lit a candle in the warm, dark, waxy-smelling air of Saint Adelbert’s. I put it beside the one that Mrs. Baker lit. I don’t know what she prayed for, but I prayed that no atomic bomb would ever drop on Camillo Junior High or the Quaker meetinghouse or the old jail or Temple Emmanuel or Hicks Park or Saint Paul’s Episcopal School or Saint Adelbert’s. I prayed for Lieutenant Baker, missing in action somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam near Khesanh. I prayed for Danny Hupfer, sweating it out in Hebrew school right then. I prayed for my sister, driving in a yellow bug toward California—or maybe she was there already, trying to find herself. And I hoped that it was okay to pray for a bunch of things with one candle.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

“Do you ever wonder what it's like to be so angry that you...And then something happens, and after that, everyone figures that's what you're like, and that's what you're always going to be, and so you just decide to be it? But the whole time you're thinking, Am I going to be like him? Or am I already like him? And then you get angrier, because maybe you are, and you want...
He stopped. He wiped at his eyes. I'm not lying. My brother wiped at his eyes.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“By the way, in case you weren't paying attention or something, did you catch what Mr. Powell called me? "Young artist." I bet you missed that.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

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

“You know, I get it. Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you’re worth a damn off the court— yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time. I know it’s not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur, and I know you’re physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like every other normal human being can, but I don’t think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit. Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago. So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“The next slide is titled: EXPLORING YOUR SEXUALITY: HEALTHY, BUT DOES IT HAVE TO BE WITH THE PRINCE OF ENGLAND? She apologizes for not having time to come up with better titles. Alex actively wishes for the sweet release of death. The one after is: FEDERAL FUNDING, TRAVEL EXPENSES, BOOTY CALLS, AND YOU.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, [...] and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attilla and a pack of other lovers with queer names [...] I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest...”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I am grateful you're alive", he said. "I am grateful that you're beside me. I am grateful that you're eating."
She rested her head on his shoulder.
"You're better that waffles, Matthias Helvar."
A small smile curled the Fjerdan's lips.
"Let's not say things we don't mean, my love.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“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

“I don't like this."
"To be fair, Matthias, you don't like much.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“you can't believe how hard it is to make a puffin not look like a chump”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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

“I wonder what Matthias would have to say about that outfit.”
“He wouldn’t approve.”
“He doesn’t approve of anything about you. But when you laugh, he perks up like a tulip in fresh water.”
Nina snorted. “Matthias the tulip.”
“The big, brooding, yellow tulip.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“Hi,” he says, when he reaches Henry’s eye level. “Hello,” Henry says back. “I’m gonna take your pants off now,” Alex tells him. “Yes, good, carry on.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“Because you’re it, okay? I’m never gonna love anybody in the world like I love you.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn’t your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“The first slide says: SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION WITH FOREIGN MONARCHS: A GRAY AREA. Alex wonders if it’s too late to swan dive off the roof.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“One does not foster a lifelong love of Star Wars without knowing an “empire” isn’t a good thing.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“Jesper: “If Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”
Kaz: “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”
Matthias: “My ghost won’t associate with your ghost.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows