John

“If you know you don't have a win, then there's no use for you being in the game.”
― Walter Dean Myers, Game

“People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...But it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special...I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way—you know, some of those Asian people say they don't kill nothing, but they'll take a fish out of water and lay it on the ground and then say it just died on its own—you can do that with a dream, too. And sometimes you can get so frustrated, you feel so bad about your dream, that you go on and kill it yourself. When you do that, you're killing a piece of yourself, too."

—Mr. Cephus”
― Walter Dean Myers, Game

“Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.”
― Walter Dean Myers, Slam!

“If anyone could look into my head
See or feel the dread that has captured
Me or see within this sad, unhappy brain
They would only turn away
Turn away.”
― Walter Dean Myers, Street Love