James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of My Life
James Patterson
Top 10 Best Quotes
“When she was free, the whale didn’t rush out to sea. Instead, she swam around and around her rescuers in joyous circles. The whale came up to each and every diver one at a time. She nudged them, pushed them gently -– maybe as her way of thinking them. What else could it have been? Several of the rescuers wept and later said it was the most incredibly beautiful moment of their lives. They said they would never be the same after the experience. And that is the best story I’ve heard to explain how it feels when you do a good deed and help somebody. You’ll never be the same after the experience.”
“Imagine life as a game in which you’re juggling five balls in the air. Let’s name them work, family, health, friends, and spirit. Somehow you’re keeping all those balls in the air. That’s not an easy thing to do. Sound familiar? Sound a little like your life? Well, it definitely sounds like mine. Hopefully, you come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will usually bounce back. But the other four balls—family, health, friends, and spirit—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. It will never be the same.”
“want to get every kid in this country reading and loving it. No child left illiterate. Right now, there’s nowhere else—not TV, not the movies, not the internet—where kids can meet as many different kinds of people and begin to understand them and maybe learn to accept who they are as they can in books. In fact, there’s nothing kids can do in middle school or high school that’s more important than becoming a good reader. If our kids, your kids, don’t learn to read well, their choices in life will be seriously diminished. That’s just a fact. It’s science. If kids don’t know how to read, one day there’s a good chance they’ll get stuck in some job that they hate. And it’s not like they’re going to be in that job for a couple of months. That job is going to become their life. That’s if they can even get a job. So let’s get them reading. Teachers, principals, school boards, give our kids books that are relevant and inspiring and, God forbid, sometimes make them laugh. Kids should read as if their lives depend on it…because they do.”
“To be honest, every once in a while, there's an hour or two when I can't stand Sue -- but there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not in love with her. She had me at "Sure" and she still does. Here's the thing: If Sue ever leaves me, I'm going with her.”
“Thomas Merton stayed at the abbey for twenty-seven years. His autobiography”
“The day, and it was a day, that writing started to be fun for me, the day things began to really click, was the day I stopped trying to write sentences and started writing stories.”
“Okay, now. In the spirit of open minds — try to walk in somebody else's shoes at least once a day. Maybe even twice a day. What's it like for your poor teachers to have to put up with you rowdy, ill-tempered boys and girls? Just kidding. You're all very nice! What's it like for the other kids in your class? I'm talking about every single kid in this school! What is school like for them? Please walk in their shoes. Okay, and what's it like for your moms and dads? They think about you all the time. Especially your moms. Now it's time to think about them. Another thing. This is kind of earth-shakingly important. If you're a bully — stop it right now! Being a bully could mean you have stuff to work out at home. So try your best to work it out at home.”
“I love this snarky line about critics. It comes from the English playwright John Osborne: "Asking a working writer how he feels about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.”
“Here’s the best I’ve come up with about recovering from the death of somebody we love. It goes like this. When we’re little, maybe one or so, we learn how to walk. Somehow we figure out how to get up on our two feet and take a scary step forward. Maybe we fall down. But we get up again. We take another step. We move forward. We move on. We just don’t forget.”
“Here’s the best I’ve come up with about recovering from the death of somebody we love. It goes like this. When we were little, maybe one or so, we learn how to walk. Somehow we figure out how to get up on our 2 two feet and take a scary step forward. Maybe we fall down. But we get up again. We take another step. We move forward. We move on. We just don’t forget.”
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Book Keywords:
rescued, thankfulness, whale, open-minds, walk-in-somebody-elses-shoes, moving-forward, recovering-from-death, grief, good-deed, bullying
