Ms. Bixby's Last Day Quotes

“Live every day as if it were your last. That’s a Bixbyism for sure, though even she would tell you that it’s impossible. It’s just way too much to ask most of the time. I’ve experienced one last day in my life, and it was enough to hold me for a while. The truth is—the whole truth is—that it’s not the last day that matters most. It’s the ones in between, the ones you get the chance to look back on. They’re the carnation days. They may not stand out the most at first, but they stay with you the longest.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“You have to slay the dragon to be the hero. Not easy to do, but at least you know what you're dealing with...

But there are no such things as dragons. It's never that clear-cut. Sometimes, the thing you're fighting against is hiding from you. It's tucked away, buried deep where you can't see it. In fact, for a long time, you might not even know it's there. Maybe when it starts, it's just this tiny thing you don't even notice. Maybe you mistake it for something else or you ignore it. But then it starts to grow, and before you know it, it's stalking you. Before you know it, it has you cornered...

Of course, sometimes it really is a dragon, or at least it's a monster, determined to destroy you or someone you care about from the inside out. And you know it's there. You just have no idea how to stop it.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“That's the difference between artists and the rest of us, I think. Artists know where to put the shadows.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“We all have moments when we think nobody really sees us. When we feel like we have to act out or be somebody else just to get noticed. But somebody notices, Topher. Somebody sees. Somebody out there probably thinks you're the greatest thing in the whole world. Don't ever think you're not good enough.”
― John David Anderson, L'ultima lezione di Miss Bixby

“... stories are everywhere, just waiting to be found...”
― John David Anderson, L'ultima lezione di Miss Bixby

“Everybody loves a good sob story, so long as it's not their story.

I don't know why. I'm not sure if people honestly care about other people or they just want a way to confirm that they've got it better than someone else.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“It’s true I sometimes imagine my life is different. That I’m somebody else. Maybe more than sometimes. But I’m not the only one around who makes stuff up. Adults are always telling you you can be whatever you want when you grow up, but they don’t mean it. They don’t believe it. They just want you to believe it. It’s a fairy tale. Like the tooth fairy. Something they tell you that gets you excited about something not so fantastic. If you think about it, it’s pretty gross—your teeth just falling out of your head, leaving bloody sockets for your tongue to poke through. But the story makes it better and the dollar makes it worth it. Then one afternoon you sneak into their bedroom and open the drawer of their nightstand, looking for the DS that they confiscated as punishment for your jumping on the roof of the car again, and you find the little Tupperware full of a dozen jagged pearls, caked brown with your own dried blood, your name written in black Sharpie across a piece of Scotch tape, and you stare at them for a moment in disbelief, wondering if maybe they aren’t what you think they are. Maybe they are somebody else’s teeth. They can’t be yours, because your teeth are in Neverland. Or Toothtopia. Or outer space. Or wherever kleptomaniac fairies live. So you confront them, your lying, scheming parents. Over breakfast, you ask your mom about the tooth fairy: where she lives, what she does during the day, how she manages to collect so many teeth each night, and how come some kids’ teeth (like Robbie Dinkler’s) are worth five bucks when yours only fetch a dollar apiece. And you see her search for some explanation that is at once both magical and believable, but you know she’s just making it up as she goes. It’s the same with all grown-ups. They tell you what they think you want to hear and let life tell you the truth later. You can be an astronaut or the president of the United States or second baseman for the White Sox, but you can’t really because you hate math, aren’t rich, and can’t even hit the ball. It’s just another fairy tale. So when your next tooth falls out, you figure you’ll just ask them if they’d like to keep it or throw it away, because you’re not buying it anymore. Or maybe not. Maybe you won’t tell them. Maybe you’ll still put your teeth under your pillow. Because sometimes it’s better to believe in the impossible. To believe you are a secret agent or a private detective or a superhero and not just a kid with freckled cheeks and gangly arms who is too clumsy to leap a tipped-over garbage can in a single bound. Until you are lying in the middle of the sidewalk, with a throbbing ankle and bloody chin, wishing you hadn’t even tried.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Dad would really have loved this toilet. Sitting there, thinking of the great white about to take a bite out of my skinny white bottom, I think of a new word, or at least a new way of thinking about an old one. Squaring. As in “I just squared one.” Pretty much the same as “going number two” or “dropping a deuce” except even more scientific. It’s going potty to the power of two. Plus it’s more appropriate for dinner conversation than “making fudge nuggets” or “birthing a Baby Ruth.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“I’m not sure if people honestly care about other people or they just want a way to confirm that they’ve got it better than someone else, someone they can point to and say, “It could be worse. I could be that guy.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“I was devastated when I found out Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore, and all because it’s not gravitationally dominant in its own orbit, which is suddenly what’s important. Not that I think Pluto should be a planet. I just think people should be consistent in how they define things. You can’t suddenly stop being a planet because a bunch of scientists say so.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“We all have moments when we think nobody really sees us. When we feel like we have to act out or be somebody else just to get noticed. But somebody notices, Topher. Somebody sees. Somebody out there probably thinks you're the greatest thing in the whole world. Don't ever think you're not good enough.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Then she asked me who the lead singer of Led Zeppelin was. I told her zeppelins could not be made of lead due to the obvious weight issues. She said, “Case closed.” Led Zeppelin is a band. I know that now.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Never-Eat-Spoiled-Watermelons”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Cooties”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“glance around, scanning the ground, struggling to come up”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Whatever it was that made him want to go home before, he was over it. Maybe it was the whiskey. I hear that alcohol makes people do strange things, but I always assumed you had to drink it first.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“YOU HAVE TO SLAY THE DRAGON. You can travel across distant lands. You can answer the riddles and follow the map and muster your forces, but sooner or later, you will find the dragon or the demon or the king flopsucker himself, and you will have to pull your dead smartphone from its case and slay him and steal his Jack Daniel’s, even if it means a split lip and a swollen ankle.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“The best that I could come up with is this: There may not always be a plausible scientific explanation for why humans do what they do. Not everything can be plugged into an equation or reduced to the lowest common denominator. Not everything can be summed up by a letter grade on a report card or a check in a box. Not everything has a formula, and sometimes things just happen for no reason at all, good or bad, logical or illogical. Ms. Bixby would probably say there actually is a reason—we just don’t always understand it at the time. Father Massey would probably say the same thing. I suppose there is some strange comfort in it—this idea that the numbers are sometimes wrong, that there are still mysteries in the universe, and that you don’t always have to know why you do the things you do. Sometimes, despite all evidence to the contrary, things can go your way.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Adults are always telling you you can be whatever you want when you grow up, but they don’t mean it. They don’t believe it. They just want you to believe it. It’s a fairy tale. Like the tooth fairy. Something they tell you that gets you excited about something not so fantastic.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Some days I wonder if they have the slightest clue what’s going on in my life. Steve says maybe it’s because I live in my own little world and they aren’t invited, so it’s easy for them to just assume everything’s okay. There’s probably something to that. But there are days I wish I got half the attention from my folks that Steve gets from his. The good half, of course. I still show them my drawings sometimes, but the responses are all pretty much the same. “That’s great, T. Why don’t you put it on the fridge?” “Cool, man. Leave it on the table and I’ll take it to work.” “I love it. Do me a favor and take the trash out, will you?” It’s not that they don’t look. They always look—for three seconds, every time, as if they were counting in their heads—but I’m never sure they really see what I want them to. I guess it happens to everyone. You get pushed off to the side, or you just learn to blend in, stay out of the way, merge with the crowd. And you start to think that maybe you’re not the center of the universe anymore. Maybe you’re not as awesome or creative or talented or worthy of attention as you originally thought. But in your head, at least, you can still be all those things. You can be the hero at the center of it all. The man with the plan. The one who leads the way.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“It seems like every group of friends has one kid whose house you never go to.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“Because sometimes it's better to believe in the impossible. To believe you are a secret agent or a private detective or a superhero and not just a kid with freckled cheeks and gangly arms who is too clumsy to leap a tipped-over garbage can in a single bound.
Until you are lying in the middle of the sidewalk, with a throbbing ankle and bloody chin, wishing you hadn't even tried.”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“a a”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day

“had had”
― John David Anderson, Ms. Bixby's Last Day