Jerry Spinelli Quotes

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Angels Balance Children Earth Eyes Feelings Flowers

if you learn to hate one or two persons... you'll soon hate millions of people.

Jerry Spinelli

Life, Hate, Learning

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Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow.

Jerry Spinelli

Life, Inspiring, Yesterday And Today

Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.222, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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Peace and harmony do not require perfection. Thank goodness for that—because life so often seems to be an itch here, a glitch there, a mess waiting to happen. Harmony is flexible. It bends with imperfection. So should you.

Jerry Spinelli

Perfection, Waiting, Glitches

Jerry Spinelli, Eileen Spinelli (2014). “Today I Will”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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How much better might human communication be if words were as precious as diamonds? If each of us were allotted only 100 words per day?

Jerry Spinelli

Communication, Might, Diamond

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Why fit in when you're born to stand out?

Jerry Spinelli

Individuality, Fit, Standing Out

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A strong relationship is an honest relationship, and no honest relationship is all peaches and cream. Love is the key. Where love abides, anger is but a passing visitor.

Jerry Spinelli

Strong, Love Is, Keys

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Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.

Jerry Spinelli

Stones, Creeks, Stepping Stones

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Because life doesn't always happen according to a timetable or calendar. And feelings can't be scheduled.

Jerry Spinelli

Feelings, Calendars, Timetables

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Whom do I write for? I write for the story. Each story, it seems to me, knows best how it should be told. As I once put my ear to the railroad track, I listen now for the voice of my story.

Jerry Spinelli

Writing, Voice, Track

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One of the best things about life is friends. We all agree on that. And yet our shyness with strangers often prevents friendship from ever gaining a foothold. If only we would realize that the other person is probably just as shy as we are and is simply waiting—and hoping—for us to make the first move.

Jerry Spinelli

Moving, Waiting, Shy

Jerry Spinelli, Eileen Spinelli (2014). “Today I Will”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home.

Jerry Spinelli

Home, Long, Gone

Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.179, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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Why do we wrap things? Usually to protect them. The more fragile they are, the more important the wrapping. Your dream is prey to many perils. It may shatter under the blows of criticism, evaporate with competition's heat, sink to the bottomless depths of others' indifference. Tend to your dream. Protect it as you would a fallen nestling. Until the day when it—and you—will fly.

Jerry Spinelli

Dream, Blow, Competition

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Write what you care about. If you do that, you stand the best chance of doing your best writing.

Jerry Spinelli

Writing, Care, Chance

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She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.

Jerry Spinelli

Light, Stargirl, Corners

Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.71, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry? You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.

Jerry Spinelli

Motivational, Cheating, Morning

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Disagreement is not necessarily a reason to head for Splitsville. In fact, a relationship without disagreement is probably too brittle to last. Some of the best human bonds are forged in the fire of disagreement.

Jerry Spinelli

Fire, Lasts, Facts

Jerry Spinelli, Eileen Spinelli (2014). “Today I Will”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people.

Jerry Spinelli

People, Adoration, Havens

Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.44, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.

Jerry Spinelli

Light, Tears, Cry

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Happy". I had not heard that word since Mr. Milgrom spoke it at the last Hanukkah. I asked him the question that had been on my mind since then. "Tata, what is happy?" He looked at me and at the ceiling and back to me. "Did you ever taste an orange?" he said.

Jerry Spinelli

Orange, Mind, Ceilings

Jerry Spinelli (2011). “Milkweed”, p.142, Hachette UK

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Do not follow me! Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tommorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!

Jerry Spinelli

Sweet, Stars, Destiny

Jerry Spinelli (2011). “Love, Stargirl”, p.240, Hachette UK

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Home is everything you can walk to.

Jerry Spinelli

Home, Walks

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This was the ghetto: where children grow down instead of up.

Jerry Spinelli

Children, Ghetto, Grows

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She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.

Jerry Spinelli

Night, Light, Blue

Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.106, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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Friendship isn't always sunnyside up.

Jerry Spinelli

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Hey, this is it—right now!—the time when you find out who you are and what you can do. And how will you ever know if you don't try new stuff?

Jerry Spinelli

Trying, Hey, Stuff

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Born: February 1, 1941
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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