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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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Walter Dean Myers
Age: 76 †
Born: 1937
Born: August 12
Died: 2014
Died: July 1
Novelist
Writer
Martinsburg
West Virginia
Walter Milton Myers
Wish
True
Many
Real
Way
Desperately
Life
Leading
Ways
Movie

More quotes by 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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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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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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What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.
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 wrote for magazines. I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the 'National Enquirer,' I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries.
Walter Dean Myers
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If anyone could look into my head See or feel the dread that has captured Me or see within this sad, unhappy brain They would only turn away Turn away.
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 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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I'll never live to write all the stories I have in my head.
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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Each generation seems to invent its own reasons for war.
Walter Dean Myers
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I know what falling off the cliff means. I know from being considered a very bright kid to being considered like a moron and dropping out of school.
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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Wherever your heart rests There I will live and be blessed I've tried to line up the things I Needed to say but now my feelings just Tumble from me. I am half foolish, Half drunk with wanting you With wanting to take your hand And leap into the darkness of whatever Life will bring. Love makes me Brave and without love I'm made Nothing.
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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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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the beast is the monster that destroys your dream
Walter Dean Myers
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We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.
Walter Dean Myers
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Idiots don't know they're idiots, which is unfortunate.
Walter Dean Myers