“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then - maybe - the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then...and then -- ah -- we open our eyes and the day is before us and ... we become ourselves.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music.
She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.
In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was...
She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Home is everything you can walk to.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Heart and head are contrary historians.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“The trouble with miracles is, they don't last long.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past "weird" and "strange" and "goofy." Her ways knocked us off balance. ”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Why fit in when you're born to stand out?”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Every name is real. That's the nature of names.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Her smile put the sunflower to shame.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“She laughed, and the desert sang.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl…. And… I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I’m not outside my world anymore, and I’m not really inside it either. The thing is, there’s no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Of course we did other things too. We walked. We talked. We rode bikes.
Though I had my driver's license, I bought a cheap secondhand bicycle so
I could ride with her. Sometimes she led the way, sometimes I did. Whenever
we could, we rode side by side.
She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.
She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh.
My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's; but timid
introverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence I
threw back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink.
"Yes," I said.
"She did it for you, you know."
"What?"
"Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."
I could not look at him. "I know."
He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."
I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the best
chance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsher
than cherry smoke came out of his mouth.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“You liked me."
I smiled.
"You were smitten with me. You were speechless to behold my beauty. You had never met anyone so fascinating. You thought of me every waking minute. You dreamed about me. You couldn't stand it. You couldn't let such wonderfulness out of your sight. You had to follow me."
I turned to Cinnamon. He licked my nose. "Don't give yourself so much credit. It was your rat I was after."
She laughed, and the desert sang.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“Whos love do you cherrish more? Hers or theirs? when you deside that, it's all downhill from there.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“I grabbed her, right there outside the lunch room in the swarming mob. I didn't care if others were watching. In fact, i hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
“I faced the gaudy sunflower on her canvas bag -- it looked hand-painted and at last my eyes fell into hers. I said, 'Thanks for the card.' Her smile put the sunflower to shame. She walked off.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Star Girl
Jerry Spinelli
Born place: in Norristown, PA, The United States
Born date February 1, 1941
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“Do not mistake the rule of force
for true power. Men are not shaped by force.”
― Euripides, quote from The Bacchae
“...and the Sunday the bishop came you couldn't see Halley's Comet any more and you saw the others being confirmed and it lasted for hours because there were a lot of little girls being confirmed too and all you could hear was mumble mumble this thy child mumble mumble this thy child and you wondered if you'd be alive next time Halley's Comet came round”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“BED. He smelled his adult sweat, tasted it”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Whole Truth
“But…I’m so glad we’re us now. I love you.”
― Kahlen Aymes, quote from The Future of Our Past
“Embrace beautiful lies - the chronic insanity of the sane”
― Sarah Kane, quote from 4.48 Psychosis
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