"Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard."
— Walter Dean Myers (Slam!)

"That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel. "
— Walter Dean Myers (Slam!)

"It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken"
— Walter Dean Myers (Scorpions)

"No matter what...ball made my heart beat faster, made me want to jump up and down and be Superman. That's what life was about anyway, being Superman and living like life itself was important. Basketball made my life important."
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths. "
— Walter Dean Myers (Scorpions)

"How deep is your game?"
— Walter Dean Myers

""Many teens will see themselves in Myers' account"."
— Walter Dean Myers

"If you know you don't have a win, then there's no use for you being in the game."
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"You're not getting in anything, so between us it's going to be outcest, and that's just another word for friendship.

—Jocelyn Lawson"
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"Maybe being loved wasn't enough; maybe there was something else you needed not to get in trouble."
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...But it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special...I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way—you know, some of those Asian people say they don't kill nothing, but they'll take a fish out of water and lay it on the ground and then say it just died on its own—you can do that with a dream, too. And sometimes you can get so frustrated, you feel so bad about your dream, that you go on and kill it yourself. When you do that, you're killing a piece of yourself, too."

—Mr. Cephus"
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to be in the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right.
The strange thing was that everybody was feeling the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play...I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen."
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"'Drew, your enemies can mess your life up,' he said. 'Or they can make it easy for you to do it to yourself.'

—Fletch"
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)

"She is a moron and too dumb to menstruate straight.

--perhaps the best line from Shooter"
— Walter Dean Myers

"If anyone could look into my head
See or feel the dread that has captured
Me or see within this sad, unhappy brain
They would only turn away
Turn away."
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"On the streets of the city
They have taken my Who-I-Am
As well as my What-I-Was
And now I am desperate for them both
Again"
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"And what I was feeling was the wonder
Of being more than me, of being more
Than mere here and now allowed
I had become a shining star, a burning nova
Exploded with love
Flying through an endlessly
Expanding universe
Away from the me that was
Toward a me that is beyond
Understanding."
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"Can you become
The hope I need? Can you help me be
More than it is written in my future
Or past? Is there another me to find?"
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"My life is not packaged,
Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged
Edges that cut even my friends."
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"the beast is the monster that destroys your dream"
— Walter Dean Myers

"Yes, she is the fruit that will
Sustain me and yes, she brings
A rain that I know can chill
But it is a rain so sweet and sings
A song my soul insists
That I follow, if I would exist
As more than I have ever, ever been
If my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin"
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"Forever in your arms
Is where I want to be
Holding you close
Within the space
That once held only me...
Forever in your warmth
The place for me and you
I feel the sun
Our life's just begun
I know you feel it too"
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"Wherever your heart rests
There I will live and be blessed
I've tried to line up the things I
Needed to say but now my feelings just
Tumble from me. I am half foolish,
Half drunk with wanting you
With wanting to take your hand
And leap into the darkness of whatever
Life will bring. Love makes me
Brave and without love I'm made
Nothing."
— Walter Dean Myers (Street Love)

"In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to bein the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right.
The strange thing was that everybody was feeling the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play...I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen.
"
— Walter Dean Myers (Game)