“...that was Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things to Have a Funner LIfe and Make a Better Liar Out of Yourself Number 83...If a Adult Tells You Not to Worry, and You Weren't Worried Before, You Better Hurry Up and Start 'Cause You're Already Running Late.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“Rules and Things Number 63: Never, Ever Say Something Bad About Someone You Don't Know--Especially When You're Around a Bunch of Strangers. You Never Can Tell Who Might Be Kin to That Person or Who Might Be a Lip-Flapping, Big-Mouth Spy.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“There comes a time when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“A bud is a flower-to-be. A flower in waiting. Waiting for just the right warmth and care to open up. It's a little fist of love waiting to unfold and be seen by the world. And that's you.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“As soon as I got into the library I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I got a whiff of the leather on all the old books, a smell that got real strong if you picked one of them up and stuck your nose real close to it when you turned the pages. Then there was the the smell of the cloth that covered the brand-new books, books that made a splitting sound when you opened them. Then I could sniff the the paper, that soft, powdery, drowsy smell that comes off the page in little puffs when you're reading something or looking at some pictures, kind of hypnotizing smell.
I think it's the smell that makes so many folks fall asleep in the library. You'll see someone turn a page and you can imagine a puff of page powder coming up real slow and easy until it starts piling on a person's eyelashes, weighing their eyes down so much they stay down a little longer after each blink and finally making them so heavy that they just don't come back up at all. Then their mouths open and their heads start bouncing up and down like they're bobbing in a big tub of of water for apples and before you know it... they're out cold and their face thunks smack-dab on the book.
That's the part that makes librarians the maddest. They get real upset if folks start drooling in the books”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“No sir, I don't know why, but my eyes don't cry no more.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“Six is a bad time too 'cause that's when some real scary things start to happen to your body, it's around then that your teeth start to coming a-loose in your mouth.
You wake up one morning and it seems like your tongue is the first one to notice that something strange is going on, 'cause as soon as you get up there it is pushing and rubbing up against one of your front teeth and I'll be doggoned if that tooth isn't the littlest bit wiggly.
At first you think it's kind of funny, but the tooth keeps getting looser and looser and one day, in the middle of pushing the tooth back and forth and squinching your eyes shut, you pull it clean out. It's the scariest thing you can think of 'cause you lose control of your tongue at the same time and no matter how hard you try to stop it, it won't leave the new hold in your mouth alone, it keeps digging around in the spot where that tooth used to be.
You tell some adult about what's happening but all they do is say it's normal. You can't be too sure, though, 'cause it shakes you up a whole lot more than grown folks think it does when perfectly good parts of your body commence to loosening up and falling of off you.
Unless you're as stupid as a lamppost you've got to wonder what's coming off next, your arm? Your leg? Your neck? Every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts aren't stuck on as good as they used to be.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“Just like when there's a time that a smart person knows enough is enough, there's a time when you know you've got to fight.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“having someone who likes you so much that they think everything you say is the truth has got to be a liar’s paradise”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“The big steel wheels creaked a couple times, then started moving.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“The next thing about the air in the library is that no other place smells anything like it. If you close your eyes and try to pick out what it is that you’re sniffing you’re only going to get confused, because all the smells have blended together and turned themselves into a different one. As soon as I got into the library I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I got a whiff of the leather on all the old books, a smell that got real strong if you picked one of them up and stuck your nose real close to it when you turned the pages. Then there was the smell of the cloth that covered the brand-new books, the books that made a splitting sound when you opened them. Then I could sniff the paper, that soft, powdery, drowsy smell that comes off the pages in little puffs when you’re reading something or looking at some pictures, a kind of hypnotizing smell.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“The floor went completely black when Mr. Amos pulled the door shut. I couldn’t see it now, but I’d rememorized the exact shape the stain was in. The padlock snapped shut with the loudest click I’d ever heard.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“We were all standing in line waiting for breakfast when one of the caseworkers came in and tap-tap-tap”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“station and said, “Yup, there’s the gasoline filling station.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“inside or the outside. I touched paper. I spread”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“If you didn't have a real good imagination you'd probably think those noises were the sounds of some kid blowing a horn for the first time, but I knew better than that. I could tell those were the squeaks and squawks of one door closing and another one opening.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“There comes a time when you're losing a fight and it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're bring a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
“God is great, God is good, Let us thank him For our food. Amen.”
― Christopher Paul Curtis, quote from Bud, Not Buddy
Christopher Paul Curtis
Born place: in Flint, Michigan, The United States
Born date May 10, 1953
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“Oh, my dear, this is worse than I expected! A strange girl is always a bore among good friends, but one can generally manage her. But a girl who writes books - why, it isn't respectable! And you can't snub that sort of people; they're unsnubbable.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, quote from Elizabeth and Her German Garden
“I can’t get to Melaina--she doesn’t keep regular rooms at the college. But you could…watch her, follow her maybe. And maybe we should go to the college, follow Neomar or break into his rooms or something.”
“Breaking and entering,” Kiernan said wryly. He had been watching me rub my head with a worried expression on his face. “I’m not sure those are the kind of wild oats my parents want me to get rid of, but they’ll do in a pinch.”
I laughed, which I think was what he wanted, but as the laughter subsided, he said, “But you’re sure we can’t go to the king and queen? They’ll be able to…do it properly. Haul people in and question them, search Neomar’s and Melaina’s rooms openly.”
“We can’t. They’ll think that I’m mad, or bent on revenge, and that I’ve--I don’t know--used my wiles on you to make you believe me.”
Kiernan raised an eyebrow. “Your wiles?”
I flushed, but pushed on. “The point is, they won’t believe us. It sounds crazy.”
― Eilis O'Neal, quote from The False Princess
“made out a shape at the other end of the greenhouse,”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks
“Many difficult things that happen in a marriage relationship are actually part of the enemy’s plan set up for its demise.”
― Stormie Omartian, quote from The Power of a Praying Wife
“It would be an act of wisdom to depart immediately… but wisdom is itself the product of knowledge; and knowledge, unfortunately, is generally the product of foolish doings. So, to add to my own knowledge and to enhance my wisdom I shall remain another day, to see what occurs.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from Creatures of Light and Darkness
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