Jerry Spinelli Quotes

75 Sourced Quotes

They say talk is cheap. Maybe so. But kindness is even better—it's free! Free to give. Free to receive. Makes you wonder why there's not more of it, huh?

Jerry Spinelli
Each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories. Moonlight spins a shroud about me.

Jerry Spinelli
Maybe it was the angle, but her fawn's eyes, looking up at me, seemed larger than ever. I had to make an effort to keep my balance lest I fall into them.

Jerry Spinelli
Or maybe you're merely uncomfortable with uncertainty. Like the rest of the human race.

Jerry Spinelli
And so I'm me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I'm hoping you wouldn't want it any other way. Not that you weren't flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and self-respect - well, that's trophy enough for any guy's ego, huh?

Jerry Spinelli
In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.

Jerry Spinelli
Everybody has an angel hiding inside. When you die, your angel comes out. You can die, but not your angel. Your angel never dies.

Jerry Spinelli
Don't confine yourself to a select group of friends, often known as a clique. Cliques by definition leave people out. Lock yourself into one, and you'll never know how many terrific friendships you may be missing.

Jerry Spinelli
Great achievement goes through, not around, discouragement. Is there a roadblock in my way, keeping me from something I want to achieve? Am I discouraged? I understand now that discouragement often precedes achievement. Instead of retreating from the roadblock or seeking a way around it, I will boldly punch a hole through it and continue toward my goal.

Jerry Spinelli
She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.

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

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

Jerry Spinelli
She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.

Jerry Spinelli
You'll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.

Jerry Spinelli
They don't live here. They live in Heaven.' Where's that?' I don't know,' I said. 'Enos says it's right here, on this side of the wall, but I never saw an angel over here. Kuba says it's in Russia. Olek says Washington America.' What's Washington America?' Enos says it's a place with no wall and no lice and lots of potatoes.

Jerry Spinelli