Jerry Spinelli
Jerry Spinelli
Jerry Spinelli is an American writer of children's novels that feature adolescence and early adulthood. He is best known for Maniac Magee and Wringer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth1 February 1941
CityNorristown, PA
CountryUnited States of America
kindness giving wonder
They say talk is cheap. Maybe so. But kindness is even better—it's free! Free to give. Free to receive. Makes you wonder why there's not more of it, huh?
people age naysayers
In every age there are plenty of people around to remind you what you cannot possibly do. Thank goodness, for these naysayers provide a priceless service: They spur...us to achieve great things.
reading hero writing
No one on earth is so boring and insignificant that he or she is not worth writing or reading about...One thing's for sure—no one but you can be the hero of your story.
goal achievement want
Great achievement goes through, not around, discouragement. Is there a roadblock in my way, keeping me from something I want to achieve? Am I discouraged? I understand now that discouragement often precedes achievement. Instead of retreating from the roadblock or seeking a way around it, I will boldly punch a hole through it and continue toward my goal.
heart eye magic
It was different with you, Leo. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same.
love-is feelings rooms
Love is big. Love makes room for conflicting feelings.
hurt heart eye
No one's hurt is too small, no worry too removed, no blessing so elusive that it cannot be seen by the eyes in the back of the human heart.
dog cat cowboy
Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?' No,' I said. People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.
stones crosses creeks
Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.
rain wings broken
Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.
dream horse fall
She dreams a lot. She dreams of Ondines and falling maidens and houses burning in the night. But search her dreams all you like and you'll never find Prince Charming. No knight on a white horse gallops into her dreams to carry her away. When she dreams of love, she dreams of smashed potatoes.
night house finding-yourself
It was the day of the worms. That first almost-warm, after-the-rainy-night day in April, when you bolt from your house to find yourself in a world of worms. They were as numerous here in the East End as they had been in the West. The sidewalks, the streets. The very places where they didn't belong. Forlorn, marooned on concrete and asphalt, no place to burrow, April's orphans.
father flower moon
Ironic," Betty Lou said at last. "The cereus insists on sunlight---that's why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flowers for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers." It takes from the day," I said, "gives to the night.
trying hey stuff
Hey, this is it—right now!—the time when you find out who you are and what you can do. And how will you ever know if you don't try new stuff?