Quina > Quina's Quotes

“Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

“I've had a very sheltered life. What can happen to you if you stay home writing all day?”
― R. L. Stine

“Many adults feel that every children's book has to teach them something.... My theory is a children's book... can be just for fun.”
― R.L. Stine

“Read. Read. Read. Just don't read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different style.”
― R.L. Stine

“Everyone should read, we say, but we act as if only those with special talent should write.”
― Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

“I'll go," he said.
"And that's safer because?"
"I'm a guy."
"Right, and having a pair of dingle balls makes you invincible how?”
― Gemma Halliday, Deadly Cool

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“It doesn't take much to make me happy, but the simplest things are sometimes the hardest to get. But when if finally arrives, heaven help those who try to take it away from me.”
― Jaime Reed, Living Violet

“Love indulged the masochist.”
― Jaime Reed, Living Violet

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“Love, it never dies. It never goes away, it never fades, so long as you hang on to it. Love can make you immortal”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“I think we should stop asking people in their twenties what they “want to do” and start asking them what they don’t want to do.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time. ”
― Lady Gaga

“Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“It must be an awful feeling to have love all around you and not feel loved, to be in need and unable to accept whats being offered, to see a world of possibilities but trapped inside your own mind.”
― Tracy L. Darity

“If guys don't open doors for you, then they aren't worth your time.”
― Abbi Glines, Misbehaving

“I'm not the color of my skin. I'm a story. One with a past and a future unwritten.”
― Heidi W. Durrow, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

“White shouldn't be the default any more than straight should be the default. There shouldn't even be a default.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“Why is straight the default? Everyone should have to declare one way or another, and it shouldn't be this big awkward thing whether you're straight, gay, bi, or whatever. I'm just saying.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“Basketball rule #3
Never let anyone
lower your goals.
Others’ expectations
of you are determined
by their limitations
of life.
The sky is your limit, sons.
Always shoot
for the sun
and you will shine.”
― Kwame Alexander, The Crossover

“Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don’t have a plan.”
― Larry Winget

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
― Audre Lorde

“She asked, "Okay, wait, so why is Ronan at the library?"
"Cramming," Noah said. "For an exam on Monday."
It was the nicest thing Blue had ever heard of Ronan doing.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“But life doesn’t often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn’t be called life, it would be called vending machine.”
― Lauren Graham, Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls

“Because who wants to Fast Forward anyway? You might miss some of the good parts.”
― Lauren Graham, Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between

“Bennie's corner of Brooklyn looked different every time Sierra passed through it. She stopped at the corner of Washington Avenue and St. John's Place to take in the changing scenery. A half block from where she stood, she'd skinned her knee playing hopscotch while juiced up on iceys and sugar drinks. Bennie's brother, Vincent, had been killed by the cops on the adjacent corner, just a few steps from his own front door. Now her best friend's neighborhood felt like another planet. The place Sierra and Bennie used to get their hair done had turned into a fancy bakery of some kind, and yes, the coffee was good, but you couldn't get a cup for less than three dollars. Plus, every time Sierra went in, the hip, young white kid behind the counter gave her either the don't-cause-no-trouble look or the I-want-to-adopt-you look. The Takeover (as Bennie had dubbed it once) had been going on for a few years now, but tonight its pace seemed to have accelerated tenfold. Sierra couldn't find a single brown face on the block. It looked like a late-night frat party had just let out; she was getting funny stares from all sides--as if she was the out-of-place one, she thought. And then, sadly, she realized she was the out-of-place one.”
― Daniel José Older, Shadowshaper

“Crazy. It was the same word María and Tía Rosa flung at Grandpa Lázaro. The same word anyone said when they didn't understand something. "Crazy" was a way to shut people up, disregard them entirely.”
― Daniel José Older, Shadowshaper

“It’s really nice to meet you, sir. You drive like a wild maniac, and I respect that.”
― Daniel José Older, Shadowshaper