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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

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Jerry Spinelli
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: February 1
Novelist
Writer
Norristown
Pennsylvania
Writing
Listen
Told
Story
Voice
Write
Railroad
Stories
Railroads
Seems
Track
Best
Ears

More quotes by Jerry Spinelli

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When bad things turn good, the reason can usually be found in the human heart—sometimes in the hearts of great masses of people, sometimes in the heart of a solitary soul.
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His smile was so wide he’d have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway
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Today the mockingbird does not sound very happy. It sounds if it is coming apart. As of the very heart of itself-its song-is breaking into pieces and flying off in a hundred directions.
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Live today like there's no tomorrow!
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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.
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She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh. My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's but timid introverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence I threw back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life
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You are truly focused when you're so focused that you don't know you're focused.
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Or maybe you’re merely uncomfortable with uncertainty. Like the rest of the human race.
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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?
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If we are destined to be together again, be happy to know you’ll be getting the real me, not some blubbering half me.
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Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she's gone. I'm not me anymore.
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And the more you love someone, the safer it is to be mad at them. Love can handle mad, no problem.
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We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past weird and strange and goofy. Her ways knocked us off balance.
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I went to Gettysburg College, where the famous Civil War battle was fought. I majored in English. I would've liked to major in writing, but they didn't offer a major in that.
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No one's hurt is too small, no worry too removed, no blessing so elusive that it cannot be seen by the eyes in the back of the human heart.
Jerry Spinelli
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Be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.
Jerry Spinelli
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You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people.
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Peer pressure is just that: pressure.
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I didn't realize we were being watched. We were all being watched
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So, he said, we ourselves will be the candle flames. He put his hands on his chest. Feel your hearts, how warm they are.
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