Walter Dean Myers

Writer

1937-08-12

Quotes by 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.

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• We're suggesting that [kids are] missing something if they don't read but, actually, we're condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, —Take this or you're going to die.' We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

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• Reading is not optional.

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• 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.

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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• We're suggesting that [kids are] missing something if they don't read but, actually, we're condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, —Take this or you're going to die.' We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

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

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• Reading is not optional.

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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• I had seen the ballet of 'Swan Lake' as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• To fight for one's country, to offer one's very life to promote the well being of the United States, is truly a noble undertaking. But so is the vigilance of the citizen who carefully examines our leaders to see if political problems are being solved by wars simply because this seems to be the easiest solution.

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• 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.

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