Sharon Creech Quotes

I love the way that each book—any book—is its own journey. You open it, and off you go….

Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.

You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.

Sometimes you know in your heart you love someone, but you have to go away before your head can figure it out.

Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.

What I have since realized is that if people expect you to be brave, sometimes you pretend that you are, even when you are frightened down to your very bones.

In a course of a lifetime, what does it matter?

A person isn't a bird. You can't cage a person.

You never know the worth of water until the well is dry.

Life is like a bowl of spaghetti. Every once in a while, you get a meatball.

The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in.

Sometimes when you are trying not to think about something it keeps popping back in your head you can't help it you think about it and think about it and think about it until your brain feels like a squashed pea.

...but it doesn't feel crazy to us. It feels like what we do.

It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had a first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.

Being a mother is like trying to hold a wolf by the ears,” Gram said. “If you have three or four –or more – chickabiddies, you’re dancing on a hot griddle all the time. You don’t have time to think about anything else. And if you’ve only got one or two, it’s almost harder. You have room left over – empty spaces that you think you’ve got to fill up.

I tried. Can't do it. Brain's empty.

I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost.

Maybe it was the same with people: if you studied them,you'd see new and different things. But would you like what you saw? Did it depend on who was doing the looking?

Man needs bread and hyacinths: one to feed the body, and one to feed the soul.

On that night after Phoebe had given her Pandora report, I thought about the Hope in Pandora's box. Maybe when everything seemed sad and miserable, Phoebe and I could both hope that something might start to go right.

And what did I think when I was small and why did I forget? And what else will I forget when I grow older? And if you forget is it as if it never happened? Will none of the things you saw or thought or dreamed matter?

when i reached the bottom, i finally understood what Guthrie meant when he shouted, "LIBERO!" It was a celebration of being alive

how can you love a little cat so much in such a short short time?

Am I supposed to do something important? It doesn't seem enough to merely take up space on this planet in this country in this state in this town in this family.

I don't want to because boys don't write poetry. Girls do.

So much depends upon a blue car splattered with mud speeding down the road.

Don’t be in too much of a rush to be published. There is enormous value in listening and reading and writing—and then putting your words away for weeks or months–and then returning to your work to polish it some more.

Something I am wondering: if you cannot hear do you have no sounds in your head? Do you see a silent movie

It can't be dead. It was alive just a minute ago.

I could tell you an extensively strange story, I warned. Oh, good! Gram said. Delicious!

I love the way that each book -- any book -- is its own journey. You open it, and off you go. You are changed in some way, large or small, by having traveled with those characters.

I'm New-" "New? How blessed," he said. "There's nothing in this whole wide world that is better than a new person!

I was full of struggles! And that made me so happy: If I was full of struggles, maybe I was interesting!

I started thinking about life insurance and how nice it would be if you could get insurance that your life would be happy, and that everyone you knew could be happy, and they could all do what they really wanted to do, and they could all find the people they wanted to find.

My granny Torrelli says when you are angry with someone, so angry you are thinking hateful things, so angry maybe you want to punch them, then you should think of the good things about them, and the nice things they've said, and why you liked them in the first place.

I am still jealous that Phoebe’s mother came back and mine did not. I miss my mother.

By the time I got to the bottom, I understood what Guthrie ment when he shouted LIBERO! It was a celebration of being alive.

I had not said anything about what had happened the day before—about being scared down to my very bones when I thought they had left me. I don't know what came over me. Ever since my mother left us that April day, I suspected that everyone was going to leave, one by one.

What exactly did people do when they had all the time in the world and could do whatever they liked? (p 153)

I wondered about Mrs. Winterbottom and what she meant about living a tiny life. If she didn't like all that baking and cleaning and jumping up to get bottles of nail polish remover and sewing hems, why did she do it? Why didn't she tell them to do some of the things themselves? Maybe she was afraid there would be nothing left for her to do. There would be no need for her and she would become invisible and no one would notice.

It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.

Zola smills, smuggles, what is that word? What is it, that word for the happy teeth??

I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.

What's important is the ambition that results from our weakness.

I think Mr. Robert Frost has a little too much time on his hands.

It is not. Mom loves me, and she would not leave me without any explanation." And then her father began to cry.

She told how the fear had slipped away through the year, 'slipped away silently and secretly', and how we mustn't be afraid to try new things.

Your name makes a statement about you. It describes not only who you are but who you might be.

Why do people not listen when you say no? Why do they think you are too stupid or too young to understand? Why do they think you are too shy to reply? Why do they keep badgering you until you will say yes?

Do the other angels know what they are doing? Am I the only confused one? Maybe I am unfinished, an unfinished angel.

This ain't our marriage bed, but it'll do.

Let's get out of here, my mother said.

My father once said I was as gullible as a fish. I thought he said edible. I thought he meant I was tasty. The

A driver had been sent to meet us. He was gray-haired, short, and nimble and introduced himself. "I am Patrick and so is every fourth man in Ireland, and the ones in between are named Sean or Mick or Finn, and I'll be driving you.

A person isn’t a bird. You can’t cage a person.

I cannot control who was going to come, and who was going to go, and who will stay my buddy, my pal, and who'll find me enchanting, and oddly I feel relieved.

Gramps’s

It was as if I were carrying around all the places I'd ever lived, and nothing I was seeing was just what it was - it was all of the places, all smooshed together. My bubble was fairly bursting by the time I got home, what with all that stuff crammed in there.

And when she goes home,' Uncle Max said, 'to the place and the people she has romanticized all these months, she’ll see that it isn’t all she imagined. She’ll be different, but they’ll all expect her to be the same.

I was sitting in the backseat with my brother, Luke, a seven-year-old complexity. Sometimes he acted as if he were two, and sometimes twelve. He was full of questions and energy and opinions except when you wanted him to have any of those things.

Sometimes there's not much difference between a heartsick soul and a suck ole donkey.

It seemed a shame that Aunt Jessie and Uncle Nate spent so much time chasing the dead. And yet, I could see how they were trying so hard to keep the dead alive,

My middle name, Tree, comes from your basic tree, a thing of such beauty to my mother that she made it part of my name.

tintinnabulation!

The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolls and rolls and calls to me. Come in, it says, come in.

I pretended he was my brother, only he was better than a brother because I chose him and he chose me. —Rosie

I wondered If things that might seem frightening could lose their hold over you. I wondered If we find the people we need when we need them. I wondered If we attract our future by some sort of invisible force, or If we are drawn to it by a similar force. I felt I was turning a corner and that change was afoot.

Tutto va Bene, All is Well.

ILL-AH-NO-WAY

I wish that every baby everywhere could land in a family that wanted that baby as much as we want ours.

Over and over, I prayed the same thing. I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.

I’m all mixed up about the days. And

Joe, my guardian and a man of few words, once said about Lizzie, “That girl could talk the ears off a cornfield.

Gramps said, 'How about a story? Spin us a yarn.

SO MUCH (INSPIRED BY MR. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS) BY JACK So much depends upon a black kitten dotted with white beside a photo of my yellow dog

It is not a good idea to call yourself a sardine in a family like Leo's, who will not let you forget it.

reader, and

I don't care if the whole town comes, as long as you come, Bailey boy.

obliged

Mrs. Mudkin closed her eyes. "We should pray." "I ain't praying," Crazy Cora said. Mrs. Mudkin said, "Lord, please bless---" "I ain't praying." "--this land and the people who--" "I ain't praying." "--have toiled on this earth--" "Stop that praying." "I can pray if I want to." "Then be quiet about it.

That night I kept thinking about Pandora's box. I wondered why someone would put a good thing as Hope in a box with sickness and kidnapping and murder. It was fortunate that it was there, though. If not, people would have the birds of sadness nesting in their hair all the time, because of nuclear war and the greenhouse effect and bombs and stabbings and lunatics. There must have been another box with all the good things in it, like sunshine and love and trees and all that. Who had the good fortune to open that one, and was there one bad thing down there in the bottom of the good box? Maybe it was Worry. Even when everything seems fine and good, I worry that something will go wrong and change everything.

She said that room up there is a remembering room and when she is up there remembering all those things fill up the room and when the room is too full they fly out the window.

cold

On their way home, John said, “Marta, that’s a long way to go so that Jacob can have a friend.” “Shh,” Marta said. “Ears.” “What?” “We all have ears. Everyone in this car can hear, John.” “Well, of course we all have ears. Oh.

The second jealousy is this: I am jealous that my mother had wanted more children. Wasn't I enough? When I walk in her moccasins, though, I say, "If I were my mother, I might want more children--not because I don't love my Salamanca, but because I love her so much. I want more of these.

If I could sprinkle some hopes over all of you, they would include these: I hope you each find a meatball in the spaghetti of your life; I hope your talcum powder never empties, that your spirit is like a cork and that you all live a thousand, thousand lives. Huzzah!

sea,

Pigs

I hated her that day. I didn't care how upset she was about her mother, I really hated her, and I wanted her to leave. I wondered if this was how my father felt when I threw all those temper tantrums. Maybe he hated me for a while.

Suffering builds character.” He said that if you are always lolling around and being pampered and life is too easy, then you turn into a spineless wimp, but if you encounter suffering, you learn to face challenges and you get stronger. It sounds like something a grandparent might say, doesn’t it?

It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had at first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind. I

Lizzie said that if you imagined you were standing on the moon, looking down on the earth, you wouldn't be able to see the itty-bitty people racing around worrying you wouldn't see the barn falling in or the cow stuck in the pond; you wouldn't see the mean Granger kids squirting mustard on your white dress. You would see the most beautiful blue oceans and green lands, and the whole earth would look like a giant blue-and-green marble floating in the sky. Your worries would seem so small, maybe invisible.

But I thought about all the things that had to have spun into place in order for us to be alive and for us to be right there, right then. I thought about the few thing we thought we knew and the billions of things we couldn't know, all spinning, whirling our there somewhere.

I didn’t have to go. I could fade into the crowd, be pushed along through the tunnel, into the city. I could roll along in my bubble ball. I was used to moving, used to packing up and following along like a robot, but I was tired of it. I wanted to stop moving and I wanted to be somewhere and stay somewhere and I wanted my family.

At home that night, I was working on my mythology report when Phoebe called. She was whispering. When she went downstairs to say goodnight to her father, he was sitting in his favorite chair staring at the television, but the television wasn't on. If she did not know her father any better, she would have thought he had been crying. 'But my father never cries,' she said. But my father never cries.

Sea fleas,” Frank said. “They’re everywhere, very wee, practically invisible. They love our bait. If you fell overboard and weren’t picked up until the next day, those sea fleas would eat you right up, and your skeleton would sink to the bottom!” Cody lifted me up and hung me over the side. “Want to try it?” he said. “Not funny, Cody,” I said. I didn’t much like the idea of sea fleas nibbling me down to my bones.

At home that night, I was working on my mythology report when Phoebe called. She was whispering. When she went downstairs to say good night to her father, he was sitting in his favorite chair staring at the television, but the television wasn't on. If she didn't know her father better, she would have though he had been crying. 'But my father never cries,' she said.

If you had a script for your life, Leo thinks, you could look ahead to what would come next. You could see what is going to happen to you. You could read all the thousands and millions of words you will say. You will never again have to wonder What should I say or do? because it will all be written there for you. You could know what dumb things you will do. You could find out if you ever will do anything that isn't dumb. But then, what if your script was dull, if you never got to do anything exciting? Or what if something awful was going to happen to you? What if your script was very, very short?

(I typed this up myself) MY SKY We were outside in the street me and some other kids kicking the ball before dinner and Sky was chasing chasing chasing with his feet going every which way and his tail wag-wag-wagging and his mouth slob-slob-slobbering and he was all over the place smiling and wagging and slobbering and making us laugh and my dad came walking up the street he was way down there near the end I could see him after he got off the bus and he was walk-walk-walking and I saw him wave and he called out "Hey there, son!" and I didn't see the car coming from the other way until someone else- one of the big kids- called out "Car!" and I turned around and saw a blue car blue car splattered with mud speeding down the road And I saw Sky going after the ball wag-wag-wagging his tail and I called him "Sky! Sky!" and he turned his head but it was too late because the blue car blue car splattered with mud hit Sky thud thud thud and kept on going in such a hurry so fast so many miles to go it couldn't even stop and Sky was just there in the road lying on his side with his legs bent funny and his side heaving and he looked up at me and I said "Sky! Sky! Sky!" and then my dad was there and he lifted Sky out of the road and laid him on the grass and Sky closed his eyes and he never opened them again ever.

Too soon the two weeks were over and we were back in Lugano, and there we learned about Disaster. We weren’t completely ignorant. We knew about disaster from our previous schools and previous lives. We’d had access to televisions and newspapers. But the return to Lugano marked the beginning of Global Awareness Month, and in each of our classes, we talked about disaster: disaster man-made and natural. We talked about ozone depletion and the extinction of species and depleted rain forests and war and poverty and AIDS. We talked about refugees and slaughter and famine. We were in the middle school and were getting, according to Uncle Max, a diluted version of what the upper-schoolers were facing. An Iraqi boy from the upper school came to our history class and talked about what it felt like when the Americans bombed his country. Keisuke talked about how he felt responsible for World War II, and a German student said she felt the same. We got into heated discussions over the neglect of infant females in some cultures, and horrific cases of child abuse worldwide. We fasted one day each week to raise our consciousness about hunger, and we sent money and canned goods and clothing to charities. In one class, after we watched a movie about traumas in Rwanda, and a Rwandan student told us about seeing his mother killed, Mari threw up. We were all having nightmares. At home, Aunt Sandy pleaded with Uncle Max. “This is too much!” she said. “You can’t dump all the world’s problems on these kids in one lump!” And he agreed. He was bewildered by it all, but the program had been set up the previous year, and he was the new headmaster, reluctant to interfere. And though we were sick of it and about it, we were greedy for it. We felt privileged there in our protected world and we felt guilty, and this was our punishment.