Quote

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

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Walter Dean Myers
Age: 76 †
Born: 1937
Born: August 12
Died: 2014
Died: July 1
Novelist
Writer
Martinsburg
West Virginia
Walter Milton Myers
Often
Fits
Stories
Temperament
Find
Fit
Heart
Allow
Years
Telling
Way
Writer
Time
Head
Churn
Within
Absorb

More quotes by Walter Dean Myers

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Each of us is born with a history already in place
Walter Dean Myers
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Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me.
Walter Dean Myers
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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
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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
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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
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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
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My life is not packaged, Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged Edges that cut even my friends.
Walter Dean Myers
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How deep is your game?
Walter Dean Myers
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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
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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
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With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.
Walter Dean Myers
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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You cannot live this life anymore without the ability to read.
Walter Dean Myers
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There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities.
Walter Dean Myers
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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
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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