Walter Dean Myers Quotes & Sayings

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

My life is not packaged,
Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged
Edges that cut even my friends. — 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

New York is my favorite city. — Walter Dean Myers

From my foster parents, the Deans, I received the love that was ultimately to strengthen me, even when I had forgotten its source. It was my foster mother, a half-Indian, half-German woman, who taught me to read, though she herself was barely literate. I remember her reading to me every day from 'True Romance' magazine. — Walter Dean Myers

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 — Walter Dean Myers

I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it. — 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

There have been two areas identified as being vital to reading - and that's for very young children between the ages of one month and five years and for teenagers. I've been trying to find ways of approaching both groups. — Walter Dean Myers

My dad was a janitor for U.S. Radium Corporation, and he stayed there for 37 years. So he didn't read. — Walter Dean Myers

I think that what we need to do is say, 'Reading is going to really affect your life.' You take a black man who doesn't have a job, but you say to him, 'Look, you can make a difference in your child's life, just by reading to him for 30 minutes a day.' That's what I would like to do. — Walter Dean Myers

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 - you know, some of those Asian people say they don't kill nothing, but they'll take a fish out of water and lay it on the ground and then say it just died on its own - you can do that with a dream, too. And sometimes you can get so frustrated, you feel so bad about your dream, that you go on and kill it yourself. When you do that, you're killing a piece of yourself, too.
- Mr. Cephus — Walter Dean Myers

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. — 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

America believes what's good for us is good for the world. It's very difficult to understand that that's not necessarily true. — Walter Dean Myers

Each of us is born with a history already in place — Walter Dean Myers

That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel. — Walter Dean Myers

I took the thin magazine from the pouch in front of me and began to thumb through it. I felt self-conscious, as if I shouldn't be there. My mind began to wander, as I knew it would, back to the boonies. I was on patrol again. Monaco was on point. Peewee and Walowick followed him. Lobel and Brunner were next, then Johnson, the sixty cradled in his arm as if it were a child. We were walking the boonies, past rice paddies, toward yet another hill. I was in the rear, and for some reason I turned back. Behind me, trailing the platoon, were the others. Brew, Jenkins, Sergeant Dongan, Turner, and Lewis, the new guys, and Lieutenant Carroll.
I knew I was mixing my prayers, but it didn't matter. I just wanted God to care for them, to keep them whole. I knew they were thinking about me and Peewee. — Walter Dean Myers

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. — Walter Dean Myers

Maybe being loved wasn't enough; maybe there was something else you needed not to get in trouble. — Walter Dean Myers

Growing up in Harlem, I had the chance to practice with a Negro League team. At fifteen, I was over six feet tall and a fair athlete, but my skills didn't come close to some of the players I saw. — 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

Things that matter in the morning somehow don't matter in the afternoon. — Walter Dean Myers

If I'm going to be pushed off the sidewalk, I might as well step on off. You know what I mean? Stop pretending something good was waiting around the corner and be what everybody expected me to be, which was another throwaway dude.
- Lil J — Walter Dean Myers

I mean, if you think about doing things to people like that, if you think about it too much, it gets all up in you and you can't control it after a while. Then they really got you. — Walter Dean Myers

Books have always been among my most trusted of friends, Mr. Linden replied. The best of them allow the mind to wander wherever the author's musings lead. — 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

Each generation seems to invent its own reasons for war. — 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

And I see the - you know, when I go to the juvenile detention centers and prisons, I see people who can't read now. And I know that when they leave those prisons and those detention centers, they're not going to be able to make it in our society. — Walter Dean Myers

I came to Harlem from West Virginia when I was three, after my mother died. My father, who was very poor, gave me up to two wonderful people, my foster parents. — Walter Dean Myers

So many organizations have a mentoring arm, but they don't really do it. Their idea of mentoring a kid is giving them general advice. But what they need to do is read with children. — Walter Dean Myers

Yeah, that's funny, huh? ... Something hurts you real bad and you get used to it. Like being hurt becomes part of who you are. — Walter Dean Myers

There were two very distinct voices going on in my head and I moved easily between them. One had to do with sports, street life and establishing myself as a male ... The other voice, the one I had from my street friends and teammates, was increasingly dealing with the vocabulary of literature. — Walter Dean Myers

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament. — Walter Dean Myers

I don't want to approach reading from the viewpoint of that it's a pleasant adjunct to your life. I want to approach it from the idea that you have to read or you're going to suffer. There's a difference to be made - and you can make it if you read with your child. — Walter Dean Myers

I think that if we can't go back, then we should try even harder to go forward. And I do want to go forward, to a place where loving someone because they have a gentle smile and a friendly hello is as easy as it once was. — 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

Now, my mom did not read well and she read 'True Romance' magazines, but she read with me. And she would spend 30 minutes a day, her finger going along the page, and I learned to read. Eventually, by the time I was four and a half, she could iron and I could sit there and read the 'True Romance.' And that was wonderful. — Walter Dean Myers

You cannot live this life anymore without the ability to read. — Walter Dean Myers

There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities. — Walter Dean Myers

When we feel powerless, we stop trying to find a better way. — Walter Dean Myers

It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken — Walter Dean Myers

I talk to myself out loud at times, and feel embarrassed when people overhear me. — Walter Dean Myers

I would enjoy having dinner with the poet/playwright Derek Walcott. — Walter Dean Myers

I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too. — Walter Dean Myers

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? — Walter Dean Myers

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. — 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

We dreamed a lot of good stuff. Marriage and forever and ever and that kind of thing. It meant everything to me. Not just a lot. Everything. — Walter Dean Myers

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. — 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

He was trying to convince himself that he wasn't guilty. — Walter Dean Myers

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

Sometimes everybody touches in the dark. You touch to see what you can stand to touch, what you can to feel with your fingers probing parts you never though you could probably probe - Gray — Walter Dean Myers

Yeah, it's hard, baby
It's hard right down to the bone
I said Oh, it's hard baby
It's hard right down to the very bone
It's hard when you're a woman
And you find yourself all alone
I've been flapping and scrapping
And running from door to door
You know I've been flapping and scrapping, honey
Running from door to door — Walter Dean Myers

Thinking back to boyhood days, I remember the bright sun on Harlem streets, the easy rhythms of black and brown bodies, the sounds of children streaming in and out of red brick tenements. — Walter Dean Myers

I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens. — Walter Dean Myers

I remember one time being told I could not play in a basketball game at the College of William and Mary because I was black, even though I was playing with a United States Army team. — Walter Dean Myers

Tests were always easy for me. I saw them as games, saw myself as being in a contest against a mythical adversary, and welcomed the challenge. — Walter Dean Myers

I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people. — Walter Dean Myers

That's the thing people can't see when they're explaining to your butt what's going on and how you messing up. They can't see that you knew it long before they did. — Walter Dean Myers

(L)ife is like walking between two tall buildings on a tightrope. For some, the rope is wide enough and the walk is easy. For others, it's narrow and hard and maybe there's a strong wind blowing through their days — Walter Dean Myers

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. — Walter Dean Myers

Violence was just as much about WHAT was happening as it was how it happened. — Walter Dean Myers

I wrote for magazines. I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the 'National Enquirer,' I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries. — Walter Dean Myers

Nothing sounds better than being away from this mess. Nothing sounds better right now than getting higher than the hole I'm in. — Walter Dean Myers

I wanted to love my father. I wanted to, but I didn't. Sometimes I didn't even like him. he hadn't been a guy you could really get next to, because in a way he was never where you thought he was. — Walter Dean Myers

Pain is the only real emotion. Everything else can be taken away. Love,happiness,joy can always be taken away. Even old sadness can be dissipated if you pee enough ha-ha into it. But pain is pure — Walter Dean Myers

I've always found old bookstores exciting. Whenever I'm in a city that's new to me, I immedicately look through the telephone directory for BOOKS, USED AND RARE. Book dealers send me their catalogs, and I read them as carefully as I would a letter from an old friend, never knowing what treasure I might find. Sometimes the catalogs contain printed material other than books, such as old photographs, newspapers, pamphlets, postcards, and letters. — Walter Dean Myers

People who want to hate you can find something in you they don't like. They have a talent for doing that. — Walter Dean Myers

Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER. — Walter Dean Myers

One of the problems is that kids who don't read - who are not doing well in school - they know they're not doing well. And they want everyone to be in that same category. — 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

My younger brother's death in Vietnam was both sobering and cause for reflection. In 'Fallen Angels' I wanted to dispel the notion of war as either romantic or simplistically heroic. — Walter Dean Myers

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 — Walter Dean Myers

Idiots don't know they're idiots, which is unfortunate. — 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

In a sane world, we would be heroes. Teachers would applaud as we walked into the school. There is the smart one, the one who wants to be a writer. And there is the runner. — Walter Dean Myers

Hard work by itself isn't worth two cents on a rainy day if it doesn't give you a good life. — Walter Dean Myers

The movie is more real in so many ways than the life I am leading. No, that's not true. I just desperately wish this was only a movie. — Walter Dean Myers

Love came easy, but it just wasn't for me.
It flew away like swallows on a summer evening.
Love sang softly, but it just wasn't to me.
Was I a fool to give my love, to give my soul,
and more away?
My heart aches with longing, cries each night,
As I just fall apart.
- Carmen, singing Love Has Flown Away — Walter Dean Myers

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

There was a time I was no longer going to be black. I was going to be an 'intellectual.' When I was first looking around for colleges, thinking of colleges I couldn't afford to go to, I was thinking of being a philosopher. I began to understand then that much of my feelings about race were negative. — Walter Dean Myers

There was a baseball game on but it didn't look real. It was guys in uniforms playing games on a deep green field. They were playing baseball as if baseball was important and as if all the world wasn't in jail, watching them from a completely different world. — Walter Dean Myers

Life is going to be harder for some people. It's going to be harder at different times in our lives. But if you're not ready to die today, then you're going to be responsible for tomorrow, whether you like it or not. — Walter Dean Myers

She is the only rose that doesn't smell of plastic — Walter Dean Myers

Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me. — Walter Dean Myers

She is a moron and too dumb to menstruate straight.
perhaps the best line from Shooter — Walter Dean Myers

Think about all the tomorrows of your life. — Walter Dean Myers

Fools commit suicide and think they're doing themselves a favor. — Walter Dean Myers

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer. — Walter Dean Myers

And what I was feeling was the wonder Of being more than me, of being more Than mere here and now allowed I had become a shining star, a burning nova Exploded with love Flying through an endlessly Expanding universe Away from the me that was Toward a me that is beyond Understanding. — Walter Dean Myers

How deep is your game? — Walter Dean Myers

We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it's this wonderful adjunct. — Walter Dean Myers

I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems? — Walter Dean Myers

When you see a filmmaker getting too fancy... you can bet he's worried either about his story or his ability to tell it. — Walter Dean Myers

All of fiction is truthful. What you create is your own truth and no one can take that away or change it. — Walter Dean Myers

If I'm going to have a fight I got to see the win in it so I'll know what I'm fighting for. — Walter Dean Myers

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. — Walter Dean Myers