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He tells us that life isn't about what happens to you, it's about what you do about what happens to you.

Wendelin Van Draanen

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Wendelin Van Draanen
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: January 6
Author
Novelist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Success
Happens
Life
Tells
Inspiring
Happiness
Peace

More quotes by 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.
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A million dollars sounds like a lot, I know. Especially when you're young. But you can't let money erode your principles or you'll wind up with nothing.
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A painting is more than the sum of its parts
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One's character is set at an early age. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life. I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.
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What I'm expecting is for you to behave like the gentleman I always thought you were.
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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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There was other stuff, too, like how something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.
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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You told us over and over that you don’t think you could live without books, but the ironic thing is, you’d probably die before you’d think to rip pages out of one to start a fire. Am I right? Well, get over it already. Better to be warm then well-read.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Surely, I thought, a few bushes and some dilapidated wood couldn't stop someone's best and brightest blessing! Surely not!
Wendelin Van Draanen
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I don’t think you’re aloud to be homeschooled if you don’t have a home.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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Maybe my mother's right. Maybe there is more to Bryce Loski than I know. Maybe it's time to meet him in the proper light.
Wendelin Van Draanen
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I'd scale that monster sycamore if I could. Right to the top. And I'd yell her name across the rooftops for the whole world to hear. -Bryce
Wendelin Van Draanen
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I had liked him for all the wrong reasons.
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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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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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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There's nothing like a headstrong woman to make you happy to be alive.
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