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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

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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
War
Romance
Joining
Film
British
Joined
Thought
Army
Influenced
World
Films
Post
Presentations
Poetry
Posts
Seventeenth
Full
Birthday
Siblings
Seen
Younger
Sibling
Read
Romantic
Presentation

More quotes by Walter Dean Myers

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As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.
Walter Dean Myers
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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.
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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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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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With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.
Walter Dean Myers
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How deep is your game?
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.
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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.
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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
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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
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Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me.
Walter Dean Myers
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People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...but it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special. I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way.
Walter Dean Myers
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Violence was just as much about WHAT was happening as it was how it happened.
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