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All Quotes by author - Walter Dean Myers
" After so many books and so many years of writing, I have a good idea of my strengths and weaknesses. I love the process of writing and, if I allowed myself, I would write far too much every day. One weakness which I've struggled to overcome is my tendency to having my characters ruminate for pages. "
Love
Good
Day
" America believes what's good for us is good for the world. It's very difficult to understand that that's not necessarily true. "
Understand
World
America
" And I see the - you know, when I go to the juvenile detention centers and prisons, I see people who can't read now. And I know that when they leave those prisons and those detention centers, they're not going to be able to make it in our society. "
See
People
Now
" As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer. "
Athlete
Professional
Child
" As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons. "
Color
Black
See
" As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament. "
Time
Own
My Own
" As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this. "
Children
Change
Man
" Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me. "
Children
You
Me
" Each generation seems to invent its own reasons for war. "
Reasons
Own
Generation
" Fifty percent of all meaningful education takes place in the home. What do you share with your child? You share your interests. I was a book person. I read with my son. My wife is an artist. She dragged his little butt around to museums. He's an illustrator of children's books. "
Children
Education
Home
" From my foster parents, the Deans, I received the love that was ultimately to strengthen me, even when I had forgotten its source. It was my foster mother, a half-Indian, half-German woman, who taught me to read, though she herself was barely literate. I remember her reading to me every day from 'True Romance' magazine. "
Me
Day
Love
" Growing up in Harlem, I had the chance to practice with a Negro League team. At fifteen, I was over six feet tall and a fair athlete, but my skills didn't come close to some of the players I saw. "
Feet
Growing Up
Practice
" I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this. "
Like
Appreciation
Work
" I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy. "
Parents
Children
Happy
" I began going to juvenile prisons. And some of these kids face some very, very tough lives. How do they handle these lives? Do they even know that if their life is bad, that they're still OK? Do they know that? Do they know that someone is thinking the same way that they're thinking? "
Know
Face
Thinking
" I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense. "
Sense
Speech
Therapy
" I didn't even know for years that people ever even got paid for this, because they don't teach you that in school. They don't say Shakespeare got a check. "
Teach
You
School
" I don't want to approach reading from the viewpoint of that it's a pleasant adjunct to your life. I want to approach it from the idea that you have to read or you're going to suffer. There's a difference to be made - and you can make it if you read with your child. "
Child
You
Life
" If what I read doesn't reflect my life - whether I'm gay or Latino or on welfare - doesn't that really mean that my life is not valuable? "
My Life
Reflect
Gay
" I had seen the ballet of 'Swan Lake' as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years. "
Me
Grace
Great
" I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings. "
War
Romantic
Poetry
" I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train. "
Train
Start
Beginning
" I know what falling off the cliff means. I know from being considered a very bright kid to being considered like a moron and dropping out of school. "
Like
Bright
Falling
" I like people who take responsibility for their lives. "
Responsibility
People
Like
" I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems? "
Book
Time
Struggle
" I'll never live to write all the stories I have in my head. "
Never
Live
Head
" I read a lot of comic books and any kind of thing I could find. One day, a teacher found me. She grabbed my comic book and tore it up. I was really upset, but then she brought in a pile of books from her own library. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. "
Best
Day
Teacher
" I remember one time being told I could not play in a basketball game at the College of William and Mary because I was black, even though I was playing with a United States Army team. "
College
Army
Team
" I talk to myself out loud at times, and feel embarrassed when people overhear me. "
Loud
Me
Myself
" I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it. "
Doing
People
Knowledge
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