Walter Dean Myers famous quotes

Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Children #Book #Humanity

When I began to read, I began to exist
-- Walter Dean Myers

Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Friendship #Cutting #People

Reading is not optional.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Reading

I'll never live to write all the stories I have in my head.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Writing #Stories

It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Temptation #Hard Life #Sometimes

I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#War #Sacrifice #People

Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Sight #Upset #Sometimes

Think about all the tomorrows of your life.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Thinking #Tomorrow

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Reading #Kids #Needs

Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Thinking #Mess

When we think of war, the tendency is to picture young soldiers only in their military roles. To a large extent this dehumanizes the soldiers and makes it easier for society to commit them to combat.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#War #Military #Thinking

I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Appreciation #Responsibility #Cowboy

I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Birthday #War #Sibling

I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Notebook #Exercise #Self

To fight for one's country, to offer one's very life to promote the well being of the United States, is truly a noble undertaking. But so is the vigilance of the citizen who carefully examines our leaders to see if political problems are being solved by wars simply because this seems to be the easiest solution.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Country #War #Fighting

What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Player #Color #League

Within the black community, roughly 60 percent of children are born to single moms. Moms don't have the emotional wherewithal to deal with their children. Their English is atrocious. Their speaking is atrocious. The dropout rate is horrendous.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Mom #Children #Emotional

What I do with my books is to create windows to my world that all may peer into. I share the images, the feelings and thoughts, and, I hope, the delight.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Book #Feelings #Delight

And I see the - you know, when I go to the juvenile detention centers and prisons, I see people who can't read now. And I know that when they leave those prisons and those detention centers, they're not going to be able to make it in our society.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#People #Our Society #Able

I was teased if I brought my books home. I would take a paper bag to the library and put the books in the bag and bring them home. Not that I was that concerned about them teasing me - because I would hit them in a heartbeat. But I felt a little ashamed, having books.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Book #Home #Library

Fifty percent of all meaningful education takes place in the home. What do you share with your child? You share your interests. I was a book person. I read with my son. My wife is an artist. She dragged his little butt around to museums. He's an illustrator of children's books.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Meaningful #Children #Book

As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Children #Reading #Responsibility

As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Kids #Cowboy #Color

One of the lessons learned during the Vietnam War was that the depiction of wounded soldiers, of coffins stacked higher than their living guards, had a negative effect on the viewing public. The military in Iraq specifically banned the photographing of wounded soldiers and coffins, thus sanitizing this terrible and bloody conflict.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Military #War #Iraq

I know what falling off the cliff means. I know from being considered a very bright kid to being considered like a moron and dropping out of school.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Fall #School #Mean

We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Country #Men #Color

America believes what's good for us is good for the world. It's very difficult to understand that that's not necessarily true.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Believe #America #World

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Children #Athlete #Lawyer

I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Years #Frustrated #Speech

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Children #People #Parent

Each generation seems to invent its own reasons for war.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#War #Generations #Reason

Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Attitude #Children #Dare

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Heart #Years #Stories

I wrote for magazines. I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the 'National Enquirer,' I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Adventure #Stuff #Magazines

I like people who take responsibility for their lives.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Responsibility #People #Taking Responsibility

I talk to myself out loud at times, and feel embarrassed when people overhear me.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#People #Loud #Embarrassed

I would enjoy having dinner with the poet/playwright Derek Walcott.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Dinner #Poet #Enjoy

I write in a small office at home.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Home #Writing #Office

There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Reading #Community #Certain

New York is my favorite city.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#New York #Cities #My Favorite

My dad was a janitor for U.S. Radium Corporation, and he stayed there for 37 years. So he didn't read.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Dad #Years #Corporations

If what I read doesn't reflect my life - whether I'm gay or Latino or on welfare - doesn't that really mean that my life is not valuable?
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Mean #Gay #Life Is

What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn't kill Mr. Nesbitt.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Looks #Mint

We’re suggesting that [kids are] missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Reading #Kids #Medicine

I read a lot of comic books and any kind of thing I could find. One day, a teacher found me. She grabbed my comic book and tore it up. I was really upset, but then she brought in a pile of books from her own library. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Teacher #Book #Upset

It is this language of values which I hope to bring to my books. . . . I want to bring values to those who have not been valued, and I want to etch those values in terms of the ideal. Young people need ideals which identify them, and their lives, as central . . . guideposts which tell them what they can be, should be, and indeed are.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Book #People #Want

I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Smart #Book #Kids

We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it's this wonderful adjunct.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Reading #Exercise #Wonderful

You cannot live this life anymore without the ability to read.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#This Life #Ability

I had seen the ballet of Swan Lake as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Children #Swans #Years

Idiots don't know they're idiots, which is unfortunate.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Idiot #Unfortunate

Each of us is born with a history already in place
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Born

But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Dark #People #Forgiving

What some people wanted was sometimes too hard to get, and the stress of trying was sometimes too hard to deal with... Maybe doing well in life was just too hard for some people.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Stress #People #Trying

The idea of voluntary segregation went against every value I had been taught. What did being born black have to do with excellence?
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Ideas #Excellence #Black

Violence was just as much about WHAT was happening as it was how it happened.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Violence

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Writing #People #Want

We all think we're different, but when it comes around, we end up needing the same things. Somebody to love us. Somebody to respect us.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Thinking #Different #Ends

he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't guilty.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Trying #Guilty #Convince

They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can’t kill yourself no matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Punishment #Matter #Belts

Can you become The hope I need? Can you help me be More than it is written in my future Or past? Is there another me to find?
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Past #Needs #Helping

And what I was feeling was the wonder Of being more than me, of being more Than mere here and now allowed I had become a shining star, a burning nova Exploded with love Flying through an endlessly Expanding universe Away from the me that was Toward a me that is beyond Understanding.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Stars #Shining #Flying

On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Taken #Cities #Who I Am

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

#Brain #Unhappy #Looks

the beast is the monster that destroys your dream
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Dream #Monsters #Beast

Drew, your enemies can mess your life up,' he said. 'Or they can make it easy for you to do it to yourself.' —Fletch
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Enemy #Easy #Said

No matter what...ball made my heart beat faster, made me want to jump up and down and be Superman. That's what life was about anyway, being Superman and living like life itself was important. Basketball made my life important.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Basketball #Heart #Important

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

#Winning #Games #Use

How deep is your game?
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Games

That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Waiting #Want #Feels

Wherever your heart rests There I will live and be blessed I've tried to line up the things I Needed to say but now my feelings just Tumble from me. I am half foolish, Half drunk with wanting you With wanting to take your hand And leap into the darkness of whatever Life will bring. Love makes me Brave and without love I'm made Nothing.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Blessed #Heart #Hands

The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that’s not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Real #Wish #Way

The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Night #Light #Helping

Everything in life is made up...You make up that you are happy. You make up that you are sad. You make up that you are in love. If you don't make up your own life, who's going to make it up for you? It's bad enough when you die and everybody can make up their own stories about you. —Mr. Hooft
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Stories #Life Is #Enough

Yeah, that's funny, huh?...Something hurts you real bad and you get used to it. Like being hurt becomes part of who you are.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Hurt #Real #Used

I'm not out here looking for no garbage cans to curl up in. I'm looking for the same good dreams everybody else is hoping for, but I don't see where they are. Or maybe I see where they are, but I don't see how to get there.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Dream #Garbage #Curls

I know I'm tired of thinking about what I should have done yesterday. I know I'm just tired. If I knew what to do with my life, how to fix it up, I would have done it a long time ago. You can't dig that? You think I want to live like I'm somebody's throwaway?
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Tired #Thinking #Yesterday

Looks to me like you've been making garbage for a while and dragging it with you. Now you need to get out of here, and that garbage is weighing you down.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Garbage #Needs #Looks

I think that if we can't go back, then we should try even harder to go forward. And I do want to go forward, to a place where loving someone because they have a gentle smile and a friendly hello is as easy as it once was.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Thinking #Loving Someone #Trying

But now, like a fallen sparrow On a golden chain, I'm forever bound in shadow, A prisoner to my pain.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Pain #Forever #Shadow

My life is not packaged, Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged Edges that cut even my friends.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Cutting #Life Is #Jagged Edge

Yes, she is the fruit that will Sustain me and yes, she brings A rain that I know can chill But it is a rain so sweet and sings A song my soul insists That I follow, if I would exist As more than I have ever, ever been If my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Mother #Song #Sweet

Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER.
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Stories #Monsters #Film

Forever in your arms Is where I want to be Holding you close Within the space That once held only me... Forever in your warmth The place for me and you I feel the sun Our life's just begun I know you feel it too
-- Walter Dean Myers

#Space #Forever #Arms