Rodman Philbrick Quotes & Sayings

Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of everything, even pain. — Rodman Philbrick

I started writing stories in sixth grade. But writing wasn't cool, like being good at sports, or being part of the in crowd, or winning fights on the playground. — Rodman Philbrick

Books are like truth serum
if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real. — Rodman Philbrick

My parents were avid readers. Both had ambitions to write that had been abandoned early in life in order to get on with life. — Rodman Philbrick

I think in some way it's like that for all of us, living with the ghosts of things that used to be, or never were. We're all of us haunted by yesterday, and we got no choice but to keep marching into our tomorrows. — Rodman Philbrick

You can't mess around with young readers - you have to cut straight to the heart of the story. The character can be complex, the plot can have some surprises, but the emotions have to be clear. — Rodman Philbrick

I could tell you all the medical terminology,' She says. 'But what finally happened is his heart got to big for his body' — Rodman Philbrick

The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there, or think about what it might be like. — Rodman Philbrick

You can take him, right?" he asks a couple minutes later.
I go, "Are you kidding? You can't just fight Blade, you have to fight his gang, too."
"You mean you couldn't take him and I was giving him lip? — Rodman Philbrick

The only real treasure is in your head. Memories are better than diamonds and nobody can steal them from you — Rodman Philbrick

As a writer, I'm convinced that encouraging children to write fiction, to hook into that marvelous machine called the imagination, has to be good for everyone. — Rodman Philbrick

I am an avid fisherman, and my daily schedule is to write in the morning and then go fishing in the afternoon. In Maine, I fish mostly for stripers, and in the Florida Keys, I go after all kinds of game fish. — Rodman Philbrick

I've always known that writing plays is very difficult, because I've written three or four that have never been produced. — Rodman Philbrick

I have vivid memories of junior high school. I didn't quite know how to deal with kids and make friends and all of that. If you talked to people who knew me at the time, they'd think I was a popular kid in school. But boy, I didn't feel that. — Rodman Philbrick

I was never forced to write. At least, I was never forced or even encouraged to write fiction. Creative writing wasn't in the curriculum at my school when I was in sixth grade. — Rodman Philbrick

MASSIVES, fat heads who assume that television tells the truth" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary
"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 165 — Rodman Philbrick

I never had a brian till freak came along.. — Rodman Philbrick

I wanted to make the world of 'The Last Book in the Universe' as real as possible, so I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I decided the world would be a very different place, but people would be pretty much the same. — Rodman Philbrick

I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I learned from Ryter it's that you can't always be looking backward or something will hit you from the front. — Rodman Philbrick

I assumed 'Freak the Mighty' was probably too weird and melodramatic to find a publisher. I certainly never expected the book to have a profound influence on my career as a writer, but indeed it has. — Rodman Philbrick

In his opinion, humans were best when miserable, and so he had worked at being miserable his whole life, and in his generous way tried to make as many people miserable as possible. — Rodman Philbrick

Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain. — Rodman Philbrick

I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain. — Rodman Philbrick

Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. "You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?" she asks.
"No, what?"
"Blue sky."
"You're zoomed."
"You ever eat blue sky?"
"No," I admit.
"Try it sometime," she says. "It's apple-flavored. — Rodman Philbrick

You don't need a time machine if you know how to remember. — Rodman Philbrick

His heart was simply to big for his body. — Rodman Philbrick

Unfortunately, the author of a book pretty much gives up control of the story when the producers take over a book to make it into a movie. — Rodman Philbrick

That does it. It can't be true love. Mr. Willow has eyes like a sick kitten. You might love a sick kitten but you don't marry it, you keep it as a pet. — Rodman Philbrick

As a young, ambitious novelist, writing for kids never crossed my mind. — Rodman Philbrick

As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation. — Rodman Philbrick

There is no greater compliment for a writer than to have pleased a troubled child. — Rodman Philbrick

I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for awhile, and that's the truth, the whole truth. The unvanquished truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking. — Rodman Philbrick

Remembering is just an invention of the mind ... It means that if you want to, you can remember anything, whether it happened or not ... You don't need a time machine if you can remember. — Rodman Philbrick

Remembering is a great invention of the mind. — Rodman Philbrick

What surprised me most about the Donner tragedy was that, given the terrible circumstances, how anyone survived at all. — Rodman Philbrick

Will it hurt?" I ask. "Getting your parts replaced?"
Freak doesn't answer for a while and then he says in his stern, smart voice, "Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain."
I'm pretty worried about the whole deal, and I go, "But why do you want to be the first? Can't someone else be first? Isn't it dangerous?"
Life is dangerous," Freak says. — Rodman Philbrick

Shut up!" I say, holding my hands to my ears. "Shut up!"
But the stupid gummy won't shut up; he's trying to tell me something important even though I'm covering my ears and I don't want to hear it and I don't want to think about who I am or what's wrong with me or why I'm out here at the edge of the Urb, at the edge of the known world, listening to some old mope who's so crazy, he think about the future when everyone knows that the future doesn't exist. — Rodman Philbrick

I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read. — Rodman Philbrick

After I had written more than a dozen adult genre novels, an editor I knew in New York asked me to write a mystery for young adults. — Rodman Philbrick

It's fun to be amazing, to be the star of the show, to have everyone watching you - even if you have to act like a pig. — Rodman Philbrick

I don't have any of the answers, son. Never did. All I can do is keep asking the questions. Keep trying to make sense of why people do what they do. — Rodman Philbrick

READING, beaming up into books" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary
"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 167 — Rodman Philbrick

What a goon, except it really is funny, me trying to sneeze a hot dog through my nose, and we're both laughing like total morons. — Rodman Philbrick

Keep marching boys and girls. Keep marching — Rodman Philbrick

For the last week or so it's like getting jabbed with a little needle every time I hear that word. Gram is trying to pretend how excited she is I'm finally in the eighth grade, like this is a really big deal. Which is a joke, because the only reason I got passed from seventh grade is because they figured this way the big butthead can be - quote - someone else's problem, thank God, we've had quite enough of Maxwell Kane - unquote. — Rodman Philbrick

You ever notice how long it takes for things to happen when you know they're supposed to happen? My fake Walkman has a built-in alarm, and I set it for two in the morning and wear the headphones to bed, but before you can wake up you have to fall asleep, and I never DO fall asleep because I keep waiting for the alarm to go off. — Rodman Philbrick

Good riddance to bad rubbish. — Rodman Philbrick

Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours — Rodman Philbrick

He's a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach him how to be human. So he's existed much like an animal, without language. He thinks in images, not word."
"How strange," Lanaya, sounding amazed.
Ryter shakes his head sadly. "Not strange, I'm afaraid. His condition is all too common in the latches. And becoming more common every day. — Rodman Philbrick

Every word is part of a picture, Every sentence is a picture. All you have to do is link them together. — Rodman Philbrick

Soon after publishing a book for kids, my mailbox began to fill with letters from children all across America. Not because my novels for young readers are bestsellers - they're not by a long shot - but because today's kids love to write to authors. — Rodman Philbrick

Expel the object!" Freak shouts. "Regurgitate, you big moron!" and he gives me another thump and I cough up this yucky mess, but I'm still laughing so hard my nose is running. — Rodman Philbrick

I wrote Freak the Mighty because Max, the mighty half of Freak the Mighty, insisted and he's bigger than I am. — Rodman Philbrick

I'm not a playwright; I'm a writer who loves theater. — Rodman Philbrick

It all boils down to this: A person has only two options in life, to do something or to do nothing. — Rodman Philbrick

BOOK, a four-letter word for truth serum" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary
"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 161 — Rodman Philbrick

So long as you tell a story that falls within the fairly generous boundaries of the suspense novel, you're free to make the novel as good as you can. You're allowed to challenge the reader. You can experiment with voice and style. — Rodman Philbrick

I vividly remember my sixth-grade classroom. I remember what it smelled like, where I sat, what I could see out the window, and how I felt about things. Peel away my decrepit middle-aged exterior, and an important part of me is still twelve years old. It helps me when I sit down to write stories for kids. — Rodman Philbrick

Dead man has nothin' to lose, nothin' to be feared of. Now I'm back among the living and scared to death about what happens next.
- Samuel Reed — Rodman Philbrick