Grasshopper Jungle Quotes

“All good books are about everything, abbreviated.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“I love how, whenever you tell me a story, you go backwards and forwards and tell me everything else that could possibly be happening in every direction, like an explosion. Like a flower blooming.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Stupid people should never read books.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Sometimes it is perfectly acceptable to decide not to decide, to remain confused and wide-eyed about the next thing that will pop up in the road you build.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Do you think I'm queer, Rob?" I asked.

"I don't care if you're queer," Robby said. "Queer is just a word. Like orange. I know who you are. There's no one word for that.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“History provides a compelling argument that every scientist who tinkers around with unstoppable shit needs a reliable flamethrower.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Coffee is a girl who never tells a boy no.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“We made this stupid rule and this stupid rule.
Boys are not allowed to love each other.
Then we painted a bison on the wall.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“You must be crazy, after all, if a bird loves you.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“We killed this big hairy thing and that big hairy thing. And that was our day. You know what I mean.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“History does show that boys who dance are far more likely to pass along their genes than boys who don't.

Boys who dance are genetic volcanoes.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Here is what the end of the world looks like:

It looks like a child running out into the road, eyes focused only on some destination ahead - the future, which is on the other side - and the child fails to notice the speeding truck that is there, on that same road, in the present.

This is what the end of the world looks like.

All roads cross here.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Well, if I'm going to get beat up for being queer, at least I'd like to know one time what it feels like to be kissed."

"Um. I guess you deserve that. You know. Everyone deserves to not feel alone.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“I was going to do something I'd never done, and see things I could not understand and never believed existed.

This is history, and it is also the truth.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“History does show that nothing means a hell of a lot more than nothing when teenagers talk. In this case, Robby knew it meant that I did not want to talk about it, so he left me alone.

Robby Brees was such a good friend.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Everyone on every road that crossed beneath the point of my pen was always going to do the same things over and over and over.

I was confused.

How could I be in love with a girl and a boy, at the same time?

I was trapped forever.

You know what I mean.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“They were both so beautiful, and their sound, as we said them to each other above the music, made our chests fill up with something electric and buzzing, like love and magic.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“It was warm, and outside the sound of insects in the night was electric.
The music sounded better than anything I'd ever heard.
I had never been so happy in my life.
I played with the little silver medal against my bare chest.
I wrote poetry while we sat there like that in the dark and talked about our favorite poems and books and laughed and smoked.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“You know, if they ever gave a Nobel Prize for avoiding work, every year some white guy in Iowa would get a million bucks and a trip to Sweden.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“You could never get everything in a book. Good books are always about everything.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“There is something inside all boys that drives us to go away again and again and again.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“I READ SOMEWHERE that human beings are genetically predisposed to record history. We believe it will prevent us from doing stupid things in the future.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“History chews up sexually uncertain boys, and spits us out as recycled, generic greeting cards for lonely old men.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“History shows that an examination of the personal collection of titles in any man’s library will provide something of a glimpse into his soul.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“To me, hearing that those girls gave my brother Eric a blow job sounded very nice.

History shows that all boys consider blow job to be a nice-sounding set of words.

I thought a blow job was putting your face in front of an air conditioner, which is something all nine-year-old boys love to do, even though Eric did not look like he had been cooled off very much.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Robby called me Porcupine because of how I wore my hair. I didn't mind. Everyone else called me Austin.
Austin Szerba.
It is Polish.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“I do not know why, because that is not my job, but history shows that every time a teenage boy opens a permanent marker, he will first sniff it before deciding how to go about defacing the planet.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“All roads lead past shooting ranges, liquor stores, and gay bars. Wanderlust is part of the American Spirit.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“I don’t know exactly what the Xanax did to me. All I can remember is how relaxed and not-uptight I felt. I did not care about anything. Everything was nice, very nice.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“History is full of decapitations, and Iowa is no exception.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle