1
Tests were always easy for me. I saw them as games, saw myself as being in a contest against a mythical adversary, and welcomed the challenge.Walter Dean Myers
2
Books have always been among my most trusted of friends, Mr. Linden replied. The best of them allow the mind to wander wherever the author's musings lead.Walter Dean Myers
3
Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.Walter Dean Myers
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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
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Reading is not optional.Walter Dean Myers
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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
7
All of fiction is truthful. What you create is your own truth and no one can take that away or change it.Walter Dean Myers
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Yeah, it’s hard, baby It’s hard right down to the bone I said Oh, it’s hard baby It’s hard right down to the very bone It’s hard when you’re a woman And you find yourself all alone I’ve been flapping and scrapping And running from door to door You know I’ve been flapping and scrapping, honey Running from door to doorWalter Dean Myers
9
Fools commit suicide and think they're doing themselves a favor.Walter Dean Myers
10
You are not in Disneyland, ” he said. “The little people you see running around over here are not Mouseketeers. Some of them are friendly, and some of them have a strong desire to kill you. If you remember that, and manage to kill them before they kill you, then you have a good chance of getting through your year of service here.Walter Dean Myers
11
Go. Think. Turn black into white. Night into day. I am tired of thinking. I know where it will lead me and I don’t Want to be there. Go love. Do your thinking.Walter Dean Myers
12
Let me think Thinking is all I have If wisdom is a pretense Then let me pretend to be wiseWalter Dean Myers
13
All the authors I studied, all the historical figures, with the exception of George Washington Carver, and all those figures I looked upon as having importance were white men. I didn't mind that they were men, or even white men. What I did mind was that being white seemed to play so important a part in the assigning of values.Walter Dean Myers
14
I mean, if you think about doing things to people like that, if you think about it too much, it gets all up in you and you can't control it after a while. Then they really got you.Walter Dean Myers
15
When you see a filmmaker getting too fancy... you can bet he's worried either about his story or his ability to tell it.Walter Dean Myers
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...when we feel powerless, we stop trying to find a better way.Walter Dean Myers
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Nothing sounds better than being away from this mess. Nothing sounds better right now than getting higher than the hole I'm in.Walter Dean Myers
18
Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me.Walter Dean Myers
19
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
20
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
21
There were two very distinct voices going on in my head and I moved easily between them. One had to do with sports, street life and establishing myself as a male... The other voice, the one I had from my street friends and teammates, was increasingly dealing with the vocabulary of literature.Walter Dean Myers
22
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
23
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
24
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
25
My younger brother's death in Vietnam was both sobering and cause for reflection. In 'Fallen Angels' I wanted to dispel the notion of war as either romantic or simplistically heroic.Walter Dean Myers
26
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