Loser Quotes

“Best friends are always together, always whispering and laughing and running, always at each other's house, having dinner, sleeping over. They are practically adopted by each other's parents. You can't pry them apart.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you eat lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morning, he's the first person you think of.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you each lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morning, he's the first person you think of.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“His mind is trying to catch the thought as a cat tries to catch a shadow.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“He's a sunshine bottle.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“At this time in his life Zinkoff sees no difference between the stars in the sky and the stars in his mother's plastic Baggie. He believes that stars fall from the sky sometimes, and that his mother goes around collecting them like acorns. He believes she has to use heavy gloves and dark sunglasses because the fallen stars are so hot and shiny. She puts them in the freezer for forty-five minutes, and when they come out they are flat and silver and sticky on the back and ready for his shirts.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“She had been utterly pleased with herself. “I runned away!” she chirped, and the sun was no match for her smile. And Zinkoff saw in that moment something that he had no words for. He saw that a kid runs to be found and jumps to be caught. That’s what being a kid is: found, caught.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“So he does what a kid has to do: He smells the cedar chest in his parents’ bedroom, he decapitates dandelions, seesaws at the park, licks the mixing bowl, rides his bike, counts railroad cars, holds his breath, clucks his tongue, tastes tofu, touches moss, daydreams, looks back, looks ahead, wishes, wonders… and before he knows it, miraculously, the summer is over.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“To Zinkoff there is not one darkness, but many. There is the dark in the closet and the dark under the bed and the dark he can never see: the dark inside a drawer. No matter how fast he opens a drawer, trying to catch the dark, the light pours in faster. There is the dark of outside and the dark of inside. Unlike most children, Zinkoff is not afraid of the dark. Outside darkness does not frighten him. His father has told him that the stars are faraway suns, and the thought of all those suns up there gives Zinkoff a warm and cozy feeling at night. Inside, he seems to carry his own sunshine with him—he’s a sunshine bottle—even into the closet, where sometimes he hides from Polly without a twinge of fear.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“Like everyone else, he is the star of his own life.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“He wonders if Claudia is making snow angels. He wonders if angles are invisible in the snow. He wonders if angels make people in the snow. He wonders of Claudia is an angel…”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“To Zinkoff and to all the kids in this brick-and-hoagie town, summer is like a great warm shallow lake. Some frolic and splash. Some strike out for the distant shore, too far away to see. Some just stand there, digging their toes into the sandy bottom. It is warm and sunny and lazy and you can leave your feet if you want to, because in the warm waters of summer, everybody floats.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“There’s some chitchat in the car, but most of it goes from his father to the jittery dashboard. “Easy there, honeybug… no big deal .. I’m right here…” The rest is just a ride to no place in particular, wasting gas galore. Even in bed that night Zinkoff can still feel the shake and shimmy of the old rattletrap, and coming through loud and clear is a message that was never said. He knows that he could lose a thousand races and his father will never give up on him. He knows that if he ever springs a leak or throws a gasket, his dad will be there with duct tape and chewing gum t0 patch him up, that no matter how much he rattles and knocks, he’ll always be a honeybug to his dad, never a clunker.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“By the end of third grade, most of the kids’ baby teeth were gone. The permanent ones had arrived in their mouths. Around fourth grade something similar happens with eyes. The baby eyes don’t drop out, nor are there eye fairies around to leave quarters under pillows, but new eyes do arrive nevertheless. Big-kid eyes replace little-kid eyes. Little-kid eyes are scoopers. They just scoop up everything they see and swallow it whole, no questions asked. Big-kid eyes are picky. They notice things that the little-kid eyes never bothered with: the way a teacher blows her nose, the way a kid dresses or pronounces a word.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser

“Nothing but the bright world in front of him. (pg. 3-4)”
― Jerry Spinelli, Loser