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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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Walter Dean Myers
Age: 76 †
Born: 1937
Born: August 12
Died: 2014
Died: July 1
Novelist
Writer
Martinsburg
West Virginia
Walter Milton Myers
Life
Jagged
Packaged
Tidy
Strands
Edges
Cutting
Friends
Even
Leftover

More quotes by Walter Dean Myers

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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.
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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America believes what's good for us is good for the world. It's very difficult to understand that that's not necessarily true.
Walter Dean Myers
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What some people wanted was sometimes too hard to get, and the stress of trying was sometimes too hard to deal with... Maybe doing well in life was just too hard for some people.
Walter Dean Myers
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I'll never live to write all the stories I have in my head.
Walter Dean Myers
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I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.
Walter Dean Myers
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The idea of voluntary segregation went against every value I had been taught. What did being born black have to do with excellence?
Walter Dean Myers
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Everything in life is made up...You make up that you are happy. You make up that you are sad. You make up that you are in love. If you don't make up your own life, who's going to make it up for you? It's bad enough when you die and everybody can make up their own stories about you. —Mr. Hooft
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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But now, like a fallen sparrow On a golden chain, I'm forever bound in shadow, A prisoner to my pain.
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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It is this language of values which I hope to bring to my books. . . . I want to bring values to those who have not been valued, and I want to etch those values in terms of the ideal. Young people need ideals which identify them, and their lives, as central . . . guideposts which tell them what they can be, should be, and indeed are.
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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Within the black community, roughly 60 percent of children are born to single moms. Moms don't have the emotional wherewithal to deal with their children. Their English is atrocious. Their speaking is atrocious. The dropout rate is horrendous.
Walter Dean Myers
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There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities.
Walter Dean Myers
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I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.
Walter Dean Myers
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We all think we're different, but when it comes around, we end up needing the same things. Somebody to love us. Somebody to respect us.
Walter Dean Myers
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How deep is your game?
Walter Dean Myers
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I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense.
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