Out of My Mind Quotes

“Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes-each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“[A] person is so much more than the name of a diagnosis on a chart.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Thoughts need words. Words need a voice.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Words.

I’m surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions.

Cathedral. Mayonnaise. Pomegranate.
Mississippi. Neapolitan. Hippopotamus.
Silky. Terrifying. Iridescent.
Tickle. Sneeze. Wish. Worry.

Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes—each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.

Deep within me, words pile up in huge drifts. Mountains of phrases and sentences and connected ideas. Clever expressions. Jokes. Love songs.

From the time I was really little—maybe just a few months old—words were like sweet, liquid gifts, and I drank them like lemonade. I could almost taste them. They made my jumbled thoughts and feelings have substance. My parents have always blanketed me with conversation. They chattered and babbled. They verbalized and vocalized. My father sang to me. My mother whispered her strength into my ear.

Every word my parents spoke to me or about me I absorbed and kept and remembered. All of them.

I have no idea how I untangled the complicated process of words and thought, but it happened quickly and naturally. By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings.

But only in my head.

I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“What would you do if you could fly?" Mrs. V asks as she glances from the bird to me.
"Is that on the quiz?" I ask, grinning as I type.
"I think we've studied just about everything else." Mrs. V chuckles.
"I'd be scared to let go," I type.
"Afraid you'd fall?" she asks.
"No. Afraid it would feel so good, I'd just fly away.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Maybe I'm not so different from everyone else after all. It's like somebody gave me a puzzle, but I don't have the box with the picture on it. So I don't know what the final thing is supposed to look like. I'm not even sure if I have all the pieces.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“We all have disabilities. What’s yours?”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“I believe in me. And my family does. And Mrs. V.
It's the rest of the world I'm not so sure of.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“What your body looks like has nothing to do with how well your brain works!”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Music is powerful, my young friends,” she said. “It can connect us to memories. It can influence our mood and our responses to problems we might face.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“By the way, there is nothing cute about a pink wheelchair. Pink doesn't change a thing.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“She talked to me like I was just like any other student, not a kid in a wheelchair.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“I have spastic bilateral quadriplegia, also known as cerebral palsy. It limits my body, but not my mind.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“The morning started out like crystal, but the day has turned to broken glass.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“and the machine speaks the words I’ve never been able to say. “I love you.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Everybody uses words to express themselves. Except me. And I bet most people don’t realize the real power of words. But I do. Thoughts need words. Words need a voice.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“It’s like I’ve always had a painted musical sound track playing background to my life. I can almost hear colors and smell images when music is played.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Delete, delete, delete. No way am I letting their negativity mess me up. I have enough to worry about.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“I can’t talk. I can’t walk. I can’t feed myself or take myself to the bathroom. Big bummer.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Along with the assortment of teachers we’ve had in room H-5, there have been more classroom aides than I can count. These aides—usually one guy to help with the boys and one lady to help with the girls—do stuff like take us to the bathroom (or change diapers on kids like Ashley and Carl), feed us at lunch, wheel us where we need to go, wipe mouths, and give hugs. I don’t think they get paid very much, because they never stay very long. But they should get a million dollars. What they do is really hard, and I don’t think most folks get that.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“I just sit there. The morning started out like crystal, but the day has turned to broken glass.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Look at that amazing display of sparkle! And feel that wind? It's trying to tickle your toes,”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Fifth grade is probably pretty rocky for lots of kids. Homework. Never being quite sure if you’re cool enough. Clothes. Parents. Wanting to play with toys and wanting to be grown up all at the same time. Underarm odor. I guess I have all that, plus about a million different layers of other stuff to deal with. Making people understand what I want. Worrying about what I look like. Fitting in. Will a boy ever like me? Maybe I’m not so different from everyone else after all.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“I hate that word, by the way. Retarded.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“I love the smell of my mother’s hair after she washes it.
I love the feel of the scratchy stubble on my father’s face before he shaves.
But I’ve never been able to tell them.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“I’m always amazed at how adults assume I can’t hear. They talk about me as if I’m invisible, figuring I’m too retarded to understand their conversation. I learn quite a bit this way.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Dad also has the loudest, stinkiest farts in creation. I don’t know how he manages to control them at work, or even if he does, but when he’d get home, he’d let them loose. They’d start as he walked up the stairs. Step, fart. Step, fart. Step, fart.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind

“Earthquake report: Call the paramedics. A girl in fifth grade is about to explode.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“I tried so hard, I farted! Mrs.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“song came on the radio that made me screech with joy.”
― Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Out of My Mind