Rebecca Stead Quotes

Life is a million different dots making one gigantic picture. And maybe the big picture is nice, maybe it's amazing, but if you're standing with your face pressed up against a bunch of black dots, it's really hard to tell.

Trying to forget really doesn't work. In fact, it's pretty much the same as remembering. But I tried to forget anyway, and to ignore the fact that I was remembering you all the time.

I don't know. I just feel stuck, like I'm afraid to take any steps, in case they're the wrong ones.

Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.

Pajamas are good for the soul.

Boredom is what happens to people who have no control over their minds.

The writing process is not just putting down one page after another-it's a lot of writing and then rewriting, restructuring the story, changing the way things come together.

But every person has to learn to accept what has happened in the past. Without bitterness. Or there is no point in continuing with life.

Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.

I feel lucky that I read so many books as a kid because I know that no matter how much I appreciate a book now, and I can love a book very much, it's never going to be that childhood passion for a book. There's some element, something special about the way they're reading books and experiencing books that's finite.

If I'm afraid of someone on the street, I'll turn to him (it's always a boy) and say, "Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" This is my way of saying to the person, "I see you as a friend, and there is no need to hurt me or take my stuff. Also, I don't even have a watch and I am probably not worth mugging." So far, it's worked like gangbusters... And I've discovered that most people I'm afraid of are actually very friendly.

She's called the secretary, but as far as I can tell she basically runs the school.

Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.

Mom. She always says to look at the big picture. How all of the little things don't matter in the long run. . . I know that Mom is right about the big picture. But Dad is right too: Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other. The dots matter.

For me one of the most important things is not feeling like you have to protect yourself if you're with a real friend.

I still think about the letter you asked me to write. It nags at me, even though you're gone and there's no one to give it to anymore. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It's all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.

Mom's always telling me to smile and hoping I'll turn into a smiley person, which, to be honest, is kind of annoying.

I think if you can take something out and it doesn't change the book, it doesn't need to be there.

If you took every tear cried by everyone on earth on one single day and put them in a container, how big would that container need to be? Could you fill a water tower? Three water towers? It's one of those unknowable things. There has to be an answer, but we'll never know what it is.

I think the idea that in a riddle there are two answers or two doors and that you have to pick the right one is almost sort of delightful to kids who are making so many choices every day and who often don't know for a while if they've made the right one. It's not as if you make a choice and then *ding* you have some sense of "oh, this is perfect and I'm happy" - it's never that simple.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean.

When something works for you, all you can do is cross your fingers and hope that it will work for someone else.

Like when that man was running down Broadway stark naked and we all had to eat in the cafeteria while the police tried to catch him.