Walter Dean Myers Quotes

Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?

If what I read doesn't reflect my life - whether I'm gay or Latino or on welfare - doesn't that really mean that my life is not valuable?

But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.

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.

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

I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this.

Yes, she is the fruit that will Sustain me and yes, she brings A rain that I know can chill But it is a rain so sweet and sings A song my soul insists That I follow, if I would exist As more than I have ever, ever been If my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin

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.

Think about all the tomorrows of your life.

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.

I wrote for magazines. I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the 'National Enquirer,' I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries.

If you know you don't have a win, then there's no use for you being in the game.

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.

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.

What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn't kill Mr. Nesbitt.

Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were.

The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.

Looks to me like you've been making garbage for a while and dragging it with you. Now you need to get out of here, and that garbage is weighing you down.

There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities.

But now, like a fallen sparrow On a golden chain, I'm forever bound in shadow, A prisoner to my pain.

Reading is not optional.

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.

he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't guilty.

Violence was just as much about WHAT was happening as it was how it happened.

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.

I would enjoy having dinner with the poet/playwright Derek Walcott.

Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.

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.

I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

Writers do not write what they know. They write what they can imagine.

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.

You cannot live this life anymore without the ability to read.

Drew, your enemies can mess your life up,' he said. 'Or they can make it easy for you to do it to yourself.' —Fletch

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.

Can you become The hope I need? Can you help me be More than it is written in my future Or past? Is there another me to find?

I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.

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.

We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens.