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" As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer. "
Walter Dean Myers
Athlete
Professional
Child
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Color
Black
See
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Me
Day
Love
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Children
Change
Man
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
College
Army
Team
" I wrote for magazines. I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the 'National Enquirer,' I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries. "
Walter Dean Myers
Adventure
Advertising
Copy
" I think that what we need to do is say, 'Reading is going to really affect your life.' You take a black man who doesn't have a job, but you say to him, 'Look, you can make a difference in your child's life, just by reading to him for 30 minutes a day.' That's what I would like to do. "
Walter Dean Myers
Reading
Child
Day
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Doing
People
Knowledge
" New York is my favorite city. "
Walter Dean Myers
New York
New
City
" There were two very distinct voices going on in my head and I moved easily between them. One had to do with sports, street life and establishing myself as a male... The other voice, the one I had from my street friends and teammates, was increasingly dealing with the vocabulary of literature. "
Walter Dean Myers
Sports
Myself
Friends
" There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities. "
Walter Dean Myers
Crisis
Certain
Reading
" I write in a small office at home. "
Walter Dean Myers
I Write
Home
Office
" When my family fell apart, it was such a troubled part of my life... I think I could understand what I was going through, but I didn't have the vocabulary for it. "
Walter Dean Myers
My Life
Think
Understand
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Like
Bright
Falling
" Now, my mom did not read well and she read 'True Romance' magazines, but she read with me. And she would spend 30 minutes a day, her finger going along the page, and I learned to read. Eventually, by the time I was four and a half, she could iron and I could sit there and read the 'True Romance.' And that was wonderful. "
Walter Dean Myers
Me
Mom
She
" There have been two areas identified as being vital to reading - and that's for very young children between the ages of one month and five years and for teenagers. I've been trying to find ways of approaching both groups. "
Walter Dean Myers
Children
Trying
Young
" We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional. "
Walter Dean Myers
Need
Kids
Flat
" Thinking back to boyhood days, I remember the bright sun on Harlem streets, the easy rhythms of black and brown bodies, the sounds of children streaming in and out of red brick tenements. "
Walter Dean Myers
Black
Red
Sun
" When we think of war, the tendency is to picture young soldiers only in their military roles. To a large extent this dehumanizes the soldiers and makes it easier for society to commit them to combat. "
Walter Dean Myers
Picture
War
Society
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Feet
Growing Up
Practice
" I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people. "
Walter Dean Myers
Church
Place
Find
" One of the problems is that kids who don't read - who are not doing well in school - they know they're not doing well. And they want everyone to be in that same category. "
Walter Dean Myers
Problems
School
Want
" 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? "
Walter Dean Myers
My Life
Reflect
Gay
" I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense. "
Walter Dean Myers
Sense
Speech
Therapy
" Children have adopted a consumerist attitude - I dare you to entertain me. "
Walter Dean Myers
Children
You
Me
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Time
Own
My Own
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Child
You
Life
" We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens. "
Walter Dean Myers
Need
Women
Future
" 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. "
Walter Dean Myers
Train
Start
Beginning
" I like people who take responsibility for their lives. "
Walter Dean Myers
Responsibility
People
Like
" My dad was a janitor for U.S. Radium Corporation, and he stayed there for 37 years. So he didn't read. "
Walter Dean Myers
Years
Read
Janitor