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
“I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The Big Sleep
“Once upon a time, powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.
The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take notice of them.
When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. The marched on the castle and called for his abdication.
In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’
And that was what they did: The king and queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such ‘wisdom’, why not allow him to rule the country?
The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Veronika Decides to Die
“Before I can say I am, I was. Heraclitus and I, prophets of flux, know that the flux is composed of parts that imitate and repeat each other. Am or was, I am cumulative, too. I am everything I ever was, whatever you and Leah may think. I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were -- inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familial.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from Angle of Repose
“Thanks for putting me up for it ... trahyner." As V's eyes flared, Butch said, "Yeah, I looked up what the word meant. 'Beloved Friend' fits you perfect as far as I'm concerned."
V Flushed. Cleared his throat. "Good Deal, cop. Good... deal.”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Revealed
“I don't like having feelings," Eric said coldly, and he left.
That was a tough exit line to top.”
― Charlaine Harris, quote from Club Dead
BookQuoters 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.