Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend Quotes

You have to be the bravest person in the world to go out every day, being yourself when no one likes who you are.

Everyone is someone's devil.

Monsters are bad things, but monsters that do not walk and talk like monsters are the worst.

It's strange how teachers can go off to college for all those years to learn to become teachers, but some of them never learn the easy stuff. Like making kids laugh. And making sure they know that you love them.

I step through the door anyway, knowing that the hard thing and the right thing are usually the same thing.

Now I think these are the three worst things in the world: 1. Waiting 2. Not Knowing 3. Not existing

No matter what happens, I don’t think that anyone will remember me when I disappear. It will be like I was never here. There will be no proof that I ever existed … you can’t be sad if you disappear, because disappeared people can’t feel sad. They can only be remembered or forgotten.

There are two types of teachers in the world: there are those who play school and teachers that teach school

It's very strange to be an imaginary friend. You can't be suffocated and you can't get sick and you can't fall and break your head and you can't catch pneumonia. The only thing that can kill you is a person not believing in you.

Maybe we are all somebody's devil.

Maybe they hurt so much that the only way they can say it, is to say nothing

It's hard to not worry, because trying not to worry reminds me that I should be worried

The world can be so complicated for Max. Even when he gets something right, it can still go wrong.

I hated Pinocchio. I think I was the only one in the class who hated him. Pinocchio was alive, but that was not enough for him. He could walk and talk and touch things in the real world, but he spent the whole book wanting more. Pinocchio didn’t know how lucky he was.

he has a lot going on inside of him all the time so he doesn't worry so much about what is going on outside him. That's what people don't understand

A veces uno cree saber cosas sin saber por qué.

I love you, Max,' I whisper as his face and everything else in the world fades to white

Max lives on the inside and the other kids live onthe outside. That's what makes him so different. Max doesn't have an outside. Max is all inside

He's dancing with the devil in pale moonlight

I was right. Mrs. Patterson is neat and organized. She cannot be trusted.

Everyone gets so worried about the people who are still living when the people who are really hurting are the dead ones. People like Grandma and Graham.They don’t exist anymore. There is nothing worse than that

Podrás salvarlo cuando hayas podido salvarte a ti mismo.

Lions eat giraffes so they can survive even though the giraffes didn’t do anything to the lions, and nobody thinks that the lions are wrong.

—¿Y qué ocurre cuando uno muere? —Tampoco yo lo sé. —Entonces, ¿por qué tener miedo? —dice Oswald—. Yo creo que no ocurre nada. Y si ocurre algo que es mejor que nada, pues mejor que mejor. —¿Y si lo que ocurre es peor que nada? —le digo. —No existe nada peor que nada. Pero si no es nada, no podré saberlo porque yo no seré nada. Oyéndolo hablar así, siento que Oswald es un genio. —Pero, y si no existes, ¿qué? —le pregunto—. El mundo entero seguirá viviendo sin ti. Como si nunca hubieras pasado por aquí. Y el día en que todas las personas que has conocido también hayan muerto, será como si nunca, nunca hubieras existido. ¿No te parece una pena que pase eso? —Si salvo a Max, no. Si lo salvo, existiré para siempre.

Él no comprende que la gente se comporte de manera distinta según la situación.

Maybe we are all somebody’s devil,” Oswald says. “Maybe even me and you.

Those who are close to us, when they die, divide our world. There is the world of the living, which we finally, in one way or another, succumb to, and then there is the domain of the dead that, like an imaginary friend (or foe) or a secret concubine, constantly beckons, reminding us of our loss. What is memory but a ghost that lurks at the corners of the mind, interrupting our normal course of life, disrupting our sleep in order to remind us of some acute pain or pleasure, something silenced or ignored? We miss not only their presence, or how they felt about us, but ultimately how they allowed us to feel about ourselves or them. (prologue)

I do not need to exist for me anymore. I just want to exist for Max. I want to know the rest of Max's story.

Todos los monstruos son malos, pero los monstruos que no se mueven ni hablan como monstruos son los peores de todos.

No soy su madre ni su padre, pero sí su amigo, y me siento orgullosísimo de él.

The thing I like best about Max is that he is brave.” “What did he do that was brave?” “It’s not one thing,” I say. “It’s everything. Max is not like any other person in the whole world. Kids make fun of him because he is different. His mom tries to change him into a different boy and his dad tries to treat him like he is someone else. Even his teachers treat him differently, and not always nicely. Even Mrs. Gosk. She is perfect but she still treats Max differently. No one treats him like a regular boy, but everyone wants him to be regular instead of himself. With all that, Max still gets out of bed every morning and goes to school and the park and the bus stop and even the kitchen table.

Y ahora Graham se va a morir porque tú ya no crees en ella.

He cringes every time she tries to help him or even touch him, but he can't tell her to stop because it's easier for Max to cringe and suffer than speak up

It’s very strange to be an imaginary friend. You can’t suffocate and you can’t get sick, and you can’t fall and break your head, and you can’t catch pneumonia. The only thing that can kill you is a person not believing in you. That happens more than all the suffocating and bumps and pneumonia combined.

She'll have to help him with the bonus poops, and Tommy Swinden, and all the other little things that Max can't do because he lives so much of his life inside. That big, beautigul inside that once imagined me.

They talk to kids in their regular voices and say things that they would say in their own living rooms. Their bulletin boards are always a little raggedy, and their desks are always a little messy, and their libraries are always a little out of order, but kids love them because they talk about real things with real voices and they always tell the truth.

Mommy and daddy wouldn't answer her, so she asked me to help. I stayed with her. I talked to her.

Forse tutti siamo il diavolo per qualcuno.

It’s not our place anymore. But it’s not a new place, either. It’s not a special place for anyone anymore.

Every imaginary friend can touch the world, I think.

Max would rather say nothing to everyone than something to one person.

Grown out of it means that his parents couldn't figure out what to do, so they didn't do anything except hope that things has changed because Max was taller and wearing bigger sneakers.

He doesn’t move at all. I think he does this on purpose. If he moved, if he even nodded, then there would be no more sides in the room. Everyone would be on the same side. They would be a team.

missed Max but I did not know how much I missed Max until now. Now I know what it feels like to miss someone so much that you can’t describe it. I would have to invent new words to describe it.

strange how teachers can go off to college for all those years to learn to become teachers, but some of them never learn the easy stuff. Like making kids laugh. And making sure they know that you love them.

Getting shot might kill a person but I don't think it would stop someone from going back to work someday. But getting stuck like Sally might stop a person from ever coming back to work, even to say hello to old friends.

When do they turn the streetlights on? Does each streetlight have a separate switch? Where did all the choo-choo trains go? Why don't people just draw their own money? Who decided that red means stop and green means go? Is there only one moon? Are all car honks the same? How do the police stop trees from growing in the middle of the street? Do people paint their own cars? What is a fire hydrant? Why don't people whistle when they walk? Where do airplanes live when they are not flying?

once knew an imaginary friend named Philippe. He was the imaginary friend of one of Max’s classmates in preschool. He lasted less than a week. One day he popped into the world, looking pretty human except for his lack of ears (lots of imaginary friends lack ears),

Finding Caroline was like placing a personal ad for an imaginary friend, then having her show up at your door funnier and better than you had conceived. Apart, we had each been frightened drunks and aspiring writers and dog lovers; together, we became a small corporation.

She says “immediately” in a way to let the person who parked the car know that she is annoyed. She could just say, “Please move your car from the circle. And whoever you are, I am annoyed that you parked there” but instead she says “immediately,” which seems nicer and not so nice at the same time.

They are working hard and fast, but they are just doing what they are supposed to do. I see the same look on the faces of some of Max’s teachers when Max doesn’t understand something and the teacher doesn’t think he will ever understand it. The teachers work hard, but you can tell that they are just doing the lesson. Not teaching the lesson. That’s what the doctors look like now. They are doing the doctoring but they do not believe in the doctoring.

The house reminds me of our house when Max's parents were trying to sell it [...] Every time the strangers came over to look at the house, Max's parents would push all of the papers and magazines into a kitchen drawer and throw all the clothes on the floor into a closet. And they would make their bed, which they never do. They had to make it look like no one in the house ever forgot to put anything away so the strangers would see what the house looked like if perfect people lived inside. That's what Mrs. Patterson's house looks like. It looks ready for strangers to come over.

There are two kinds of teachers in the world: there are teachers who play school and teachers who teach school, and Miss Daggerty and Mrs. Sera and especially Mrs. Gosk are the kinds of teachers that teach school. They talk to their kids in their regular voices and say things that they would say in their own living rooms. Their bulletin boards are always a little raggedy, and their desks are always a little messy, and their libraries are always a little out of order, but kids love them because they talk about real things with real voices and they always tell the truth. This is why Max loves Mrs. Gosk. She never pretends to be a teacher. She is just herself, and it makes Max relax a little. There is nothing to figure out.

Max's father likes to tell people that he and Max play catch every night in the backyard, like they are doing tonight. He tells everyone he can, sometimes more than once, but he usually waits until Max's mom isn't around before he says it. Sometimes he says it just after she leaves the room if he knows that she's coming right back. But he and Max don't really play catch. Max's dad throws the ball to Max, and Max lets it hit the ground and roll, and when it stops moving, he picks it up and tries to throw it back. Except Max's dad never stands close enough for Max to reach him, even though he tells Max to "Step into it!" and "Throw with your body!" and "Give it your all, son!" Whenever they play catch, Max's dad calls Max "son" instead of "Max." But even if Max steps into it or gives it his all (I don't know what either of those things mean, and I don't think Max does either,) the ball never reaches his dad. If Max's dad wants the ball to reach him, why doesn't he just stand closer?

¡Le has salvado la vida! ¡Ese coche lo iba a chafar!». Pero yo le dije que en realidad me había salvado a mí mismo, porque, el día en que Max muera, creo que yo moriré con él.

—Cuando la gente tergiversa las palabras para hacerme sentir mejor, lo único que consigue es que me sienta peor. Y si eres tú quien lo hace, mucho peor todavía.

Puede que todos seamos el demonio de alguien -dice Oswald-. Incluso tu y yo.

But none of them look like the police officers on television, so I’m worried that none of them are as smart. The real-world policemen are all a little shorter, a little fatter, and a little hairier than the ones on TV. One even has hair in his ears.

Ojalá existiera el paraíso. Si yo supiera que había un paraíso esperándome, seguro que salvaría a Max. No sentiría miedo porque tendría un sitio al que ir después de este

—Pero para salir de casa cada día y ser tú mismo cuando a nadie le gusta como eres hay que ser supervaliente.

—Puede que todos seamos el demonio de alguien —dice Oswald—. Incluso tú y yo

A partir de ese instante nada tendrá nunca más sentido ninguno para mí. Y no solo hablo de lo que pase después de que yo muera, sino también a lo de antes. Cuando yo muera, todo morirá conmigo.

I was able to concentrate and focus better on the day I was born than Max is able to even today.

I thought she would be happy that Max's dad agreed to go to the doctor, but she still looks sad. Max's dad looks sad, too. Neither one of them looks at the other. Not once. It is like there are a hundred dinning room tables between them instead of just one. I feel sad for them, too. If they had just watched television, this would never have happened.

Finding Caroline was like placing a personal ad for an imaginary friend, then having her show up at your door funnier and better than you had conceived

He was thinking that his friends might stop calling him Tommy the 'Tard for not being able to read if he could show them that he knew how to whittle a stick with his Swiss Army knife. That's the kind of things kids do. Try to cover up their problems with things like Swiss Army knives.

It's like Max's dad has pressed the Pause button on the remote control. The argument is paused. But it is not over. Max is the only boy I have ever seen who makes toy soldiers retreat or surrender. Every other boy makes them die instead.

Max’s mom says that his dad can’t see the forest for the trees. That’s like Max except it’s with the whole world. He can’t see the big things because of all the little things that get in his way.

Puns and knock-knock jokes make no sense to him, because they say one thing but mean another.

there was anger in his voice, but it was the kind of anger that someone has when they are afraid. It sounded more nervous and rushed. It was like fear dressed up in a loud voice and red cheeks.