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It's experiences in life that give us something to write about, and since good fiction is applied tension, you'll have an arsenal of good material if life hasn't been peachy (and not a whole lot if it has).

Wendelin Van Draanen

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Wendelin Van Draanen
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: January 6
Author
Novelist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Give
Hasn
Whole
Tension
Giving
Experiences
Writing
Material
Something
Materials
Good
Fiction
Peachy
Life
Since
Arsenal
Write
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More quotes by Wendelin Van Draanen

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I just need some time to get over all those years of having liked him
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Get beyond his eyes and his smile and the sheen of his hair - look at what's really there.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Was it so much to ask just to be left alone?
Wendelin Van Draanen
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There’s no winning arguments with your parents, so why get all pumped up over them? It is way better to dive down and get out of the way than it is to get clobbered by some parental tidal wave.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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There's nothing like a headstrong woman to make you happy to be alive.
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Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss.... He turned to me. But every once in a while, you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Sometimes I get so caught up in my own problems that I forget how amazing the world is.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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A painting is more than the sum of its parts
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Sometimes a little discomfort in the beginning can save a whole lot of pain down the road.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Okay that’s it. Now I’m torching this. I just need to score a match.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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A painting is more than the sum of its parts,' he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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I realize something. That wasn't a finish line for me...This is my new starting line.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Julie always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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It's funny how you can think you know someone pretty well, and then something happens or they do something that makes you understand that you didn't really know them at all.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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I miss school. What’s wrong with me?
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Turn down a chance to feel magic for fear of a little dirt?
Wendelin Van Draanen
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What he did to my heart was sheer, inexplicable, magic.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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(Actually now I’m remembering that the goodbye chow isn’t spelled that way. It’s ciao or something weird like that. It’s Italian, right? But I’m not an Italian gypsy, I’m a hungry gypsy. So spelling it chow makes total sense.)
Wendelin Van Draanen
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As I run, I wonder how many of these people helped buy my leg. I wonder about the deep, wide abyss between good intentions and concrete action, and how many of them leapt across it.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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I fell asleep that night thinking about the kiss that might have been. What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet – only science would put them on the same tree.
Wendelin Van Draanen