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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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Walter Dean Myers
Age: 76 †
Born: 1937
Born: August 12
Died: 2014
Died: July 1
Novelist
Writer
Martinsburg
West Virginia
Walter Milton Myers
Went
Values
Idea
Born
Voluntary
Black
Segregation
Ideas
Excellence
Every
Value
Taught
More quotes by Walter Dean Myers
Violence was just as much about WHAT was happening as it was how it happened.
Walter Dean Myers
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
Fifty percent of all meaningful education takes place in the home. What do you share with your child? You share your interests. I was a book person. I read with my son. My wife is an artist. She dragged his little butt around to museums. He's an illustrator of children's books.
Walter Dean Myers
Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me.
Walter Dean Myers
You cannot live this life anymore without the ability to read.
Walter Dean Myers
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
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
he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't guilty.
Walter Dean Myers
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
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
As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this.
Walter Dean Myers
I'm not out here looking for no garbage cans to curl up in. I'm looking for the same good dreams everybody else is hoping for, but I don't see where they are. Or maybe I see where they are, but I don't see how to get there.
Walter Dean Myers
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
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
Each generation seems to invent its own reasons for war.
Walter Dean Myers
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
Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?
Walter Dean Myers
New York is my favorite city.
Walter Dean Myers
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
As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.
Walter Dean Myers
