James Patterson · 288 pages
Rating: (16.7K votes)
“Every masterpiece comes at the end of a long line of failures.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“People always talk about how great it is to get older. All I saw were more rules and more adults telling me what I could and couldn't do, in the name of what's " good for me." Yeah, well, asparagus is good for me, but it still makes me want to throw up.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Now, like all the other schools I’ve ever attended, the hallways of Long Beach Middle School are plastered with all sorts of NO BULLYING posters. There’s only one problem: Bullies, it turns out, don’t read too much. I guess reading really isn’t a job requirement in the high-paying fields of name-calling, nose-punching, and atomic-wedgie-yanking.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“That’s right: Never underestimate the power of a good laugh. It can stop some of the fiercest middle-school monsters.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Excuse me, sir, you got dog poop on your shoe.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“This was the weird part with me and Miller. We both hated each other, but even more than that, he wanted my money and I wanted my notebook back. Neither of us had said anything about it to Stricker, even when we both got suspended. It was like middle school Mafia or something.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“The next forty-five minutes in that office was about as much fun as a day at Disney World—when it’s pouring rain. And all there is to eat are hot-dog buns. And you get electrocuted on the rides.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Thirsty?” I said, trying to stay cool. “You know, this is totally against the rules,” she said. “That makes it taste better,” I said. (Good line, right?) Jeanne”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“I’M RAFe KHATCHADORiAN, TRAGiC HeRO I”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“that kid’s nothing but a little hoodlum.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Five minutes,” I said, and walked away, but my heart was still going just as fast as before. This was only half over. Was it five minutes until I pulled this off? Or five minutes to live?”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“It’s just you, your homework, and the homework room. All. Day. Long. I turned thirteen in that room. Winter ended, and then spring came and went. Wars happened. Trees grew. Babies were born and people died.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“That’s me, by the way, arriving at “prison”—also known as Hills Village Middle School—in”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“I may have been dressed as a falcon, but I’ll tell you what. I felt like the biggest”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Here are some other people I don’t trust as far as I can throw a truckload of pianos.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Rafe jumped Miller!” Gabe said. The problem was, it was true. There were about three dozen witnesses.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“It feels as honest as the day is crummy that I begin this tale of total desperation and woe with me, my pukey sister, Georgia, and Leonardo the Silent sitting like rotting sardines in the back of a Hills Village Police Department cruiser.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“What?” says Kosgrov. “You think I won’t lay you out just because you’re stuck in a wheelchair, funny boy?” “Yeah,” I say. “Pretty much.” Turns out I’m pretty wrong.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Who cares?” I told him. “I’m already in trouble. Keep talking.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Stevie Kosgrov punched me just like I was a regular, normal kid”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Okay? Now you know all this stuff about me, and I still don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know if you’re still there. Are you? And if you are, can I trust you with the rest? I still want to know—are you a good person? Maybe that’s not fair of me to ask, since I haven’t even figured out whether I’m a good person or not. I guess you can be the judge. Here’s the deal. If you’re okay with me so far, then keep reading. But if you’ve gotten this far and you think I’m the lowest of the low and I don’t deserve to have my own book, then maybe you should stop right now. Because it only gets worse from here. (Or better, depending on how you look at it.) Signed, your friend (?), RK”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“I can see why you, sir, are the champ. You bully without regard to race, religion, creed, national origin, or physical abilities. You are an equal-opportunity tormentor.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“family we choose. You don’t know how lucky I am that Pierce and Gaynor chose me. These two guys are awesome. The best.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Mom and Bear got into a big fight that afternoon when she told him what had happened. He kept yelling about how she wasn’t “hard enough” on me, and she kept telling him to back off. I just stayed in my room, wishing for it to be over. Finally, Mom said something about how she was late for work, and she slammed the door on her way out.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“Now, I don’t know if you can appreciate this without actually knowing her, but getting Mrs. Stricker to laugh is like getting an octopus to stand up on two legs.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“pay somebody to go to school for me.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“alarm box, and put my finger on the little white”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
“she told me, and now she was just annoyed. By the time I said”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
James Patterson
Born place: in Newburgh, New York, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“Okay. And you'll, uh, make sure he doesn't hurt anybody when he's, you know, nutty and out of his mind with blood lust?" For the next ten years?
Liam winced (well, he blinked), but Sophie soldiered on. "My queen, I have experience in these matters. Guarding young vampires--I--all will be as you wish."
Yeah, right. That'd be a fucking first.”
― MaryJanice Davidson, quote from Undead and Unpopular
“I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language. Without her to talk to, there was nothing to say.”
― Rob Sheffield, quote from Love Is a Mix Tape
“For the benefit of other lady travelers, I wish to explain that my "Hawaiian riding dress" is the "American Lady's Mountain Dress," a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full Turkish trousers gathered into frills falling over the boots,—a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough traveling, as in the Alps or any other part of the world. I. L. B. (Author's note to the second edition, November 27, 1879.) Once”
― Isabella L. Bird, quote from Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
“Reality depends upon your mind alone.[34]”
― Kamo no Chōmei, quote from Hojoki: Ten Foot Square House
“When at last a cab arrived and pulled up directly in front of me, I was astonished to discover that seventeen grown men and women believed they had a perfect right to try to get in ahead of me. A middle-aged man in a cashmere coat who was obviously wealthy and well-educated actually laid hands on me. I maintained possession by making a series of aggrieved Gallic honking noises—“Mais, non! Mais, non!”—and using my bulk to block the door. I leaped in, resisting the chance to catch the pushy man’s tie in the door and let him trot along with us to the Gare du Nord, and told the driver to get me the hell out of there. He looked at me as if I were a large, imperfectly formed turd, and with a disgusted sigh engaged first gear.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
The Runaway Queen
The Hen Who Dreamed...
A History of Reading
The Eye of MindsBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
