Gardner > Gardner's Quotes

“THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL

1. We are here to help you.
2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings.
3. The dress code will be enforced.
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
5. Our football team will win the championship this year.
6. We expect more of you here.
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
8. Your schedule was created with you in mind.
9. Your locker combination is private.
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly.

TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL

1. You will use algebra in your adult lives.
2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away.
3. Students must stay on campus during lunch.
4. The new text books will arrive any day now.
5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores.
6. We are enforcing the dress code.
7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon.
8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals.
9. There is nothing wrong with summer school.
10. We want to hear what you have to say.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”
― Stephen King

“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“To know I was beautiful in his eyes made me beautiful. ”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages... and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“You're the oddest person I've ever met, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry

“There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic: this was usually Valentina's first impulse. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you've misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“The town was paper, but the memories were not.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“I didn’t need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“Whoever is happy will make others happy.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Sometimes I believe that God wants to try me, both now and later on; I must become good through my own efforts, without examples and without good advice.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Steve Jobs

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt