Jack Gantos Quotes

#1. Miss Volker," I said about as politely as I knew how, "do you think you will outlast the rest of these original people?" "I have to," she said. "I made a promise to Eleanor Roosevelt to see them to their graves, and I can't drop dead on the job - so let's get going.

Jack Gantos

#2. Each time I read a book, I cataloged the parts that struck me dumb with envy and admiration for their beauty and power and truth.

Jack Gantos

#3. I was always a liar. But one thing I failed to realize about being a liar is that you know when you are deceiving someone else, but when you deceive yourself you believe you are telling the truth.

Jack Gantos

#4. Be suspicious of history that is written by the conquerors.

Jack Gantos

#5. You want to know a secret?" I asked. "Sure," she said halfheartedly. "I love to sniff the insides of books," I said in a whisper. "Because each book has its own special perfume.

Jack Gantos

#6. Your pony, he said as he stomped toward me. "I'm the farrier who is here to fix your pony."
"I thought you were a Hells Angel," I said.
"I used to be," he replied. "But fighting all the time and being really drunk and nasty got boring. So now I just take care of animals.

Jack Gantos

#7. They say love is blind, but for me it's the opposite. It makes me see the good in him, too, which is why I can never hate him.'
Mom (Fran)

Jack Gantos

#8. These folks zigged when the rest of the world zagged. And once you cross the line, there's no coming back. Mark my words.

Jack Gantos

#9. Do you think I'm weird because I'm wired, or wired because I'm wierd?

Jack Gantos

#10. Granny was right,' I said. 'When you forgive someone it does make you stronger. It makes your heart bigger than your hate.

Jack Gantos

#11. But it was the kind of story that doesn't go away after the first time you tell it so you have to tell it over and over until it goes away for good. If it ever can.

Jack Gantos

#12. Well, don't fart or you'll scare the deer," he continued seriously. "They have very sensitive noses and ears.

Jack Gantos

#13. You're supposed to feel sorry for me," I said. "What I feel for you and what I can afford are two different things," she said.

Jack Gantos

#14. Money is just a way of measuring work, but you don't need money if everyone agrees that trading one kind of work for another will do just as well.

Jack Gantos

#15. Of course I still love my grandma even after all the awful stuff she did to me, which is scary that you can love someone who is not nice. I guess that is what getting better will do to a person: make you forgive people who have been mean to you.

Jack Gantos

#16. We have to save the history we have. You never know what small bit of it might change your life
or change the whole world.

Jack Gantos

#17. Still, he was another guy in the house, and Mom was mine first, and her being my mom is a thousand times more important than her being some guy's girlfriend. So even though Booth wasn't trying to run the show, he was still in the way.

Jack Gantos

#18. I could see everything she said as if it were a wall painting inside the cave of my own skull.

Jack Gantos

#19. Not romantic," she disagreed. "To me it would be romantic if Antony properly fell on his sword and kicked the bucket and Cleopatra escaped and lived a lovely life sailing along the Nile without him and his big ideas ruining her kingdom.

Jack Gantos

#20. Don't ever go to war. Even if you win, the battle is never over inside you.

Jack Gantos

#21. It's like when you read a book and you know that the words are important, but the images blossoming in your imagination are even more important because it's your mind that allows the words to come to life.

Jack Gantos

#22. If you have an orderly mind, you'll be a winner no matter where you end up. If your mind is a jumble of junk, you'll be a loser. It's as simple as that.

Jack Gantos

#23. You can't do anything for a person who is stuck between being happy and being miserable. All you can do is get trapped in the middle, and anyone in the middle just gets squished.' -Grandma

Jack Gantos

#24. Well I'm looking at history," she said, pointing at me. "You used to be a friend, but now you stink as a friend! I came here to give you a second chance and you make me smell the crotch of an old book.

Jack Gantos

#25. You gotta face the hand you're dealt with and deal with it, and make your problems be the smallest part of who you are.

Jack Gantos

#26. Since I was trying so hard to make books lead my life, I didn't want to read them and then just put them back on the shelf and say, "good book," as if I was patting a good dog. I wanted books to change me, and I wanted to write books that would change others.

Jack Gantos

#27. I know I'm not perfect, but I didn't think it was fair that they told me one thing and wrote down another.

Jack Gantos

#28. I want you to take a sleeve of Thin Mints and line them up on the edge of the kitchen counter and when I'm hungry I can just bend over and sweep a cookie into my mouth like I'm scoring a goal in hockey.

Jack Gantos

#29. But every living soul is a book of their own history, which sits on the ever-growing shelf in the library of human memories.

Jack Gantos

#30. Don't ever forget your history," she sang, "or any wicked soul can lie to you and get away with it.

Jack Gantos

#31. Who proved that you don't have to do what your parents want, or what your boyfriend wants, for you to be happy. You just have to be yourself, for there is no love greater than self love

Jack Gantos

#32. You know, Joey, the medication has helped settle you down, but you have been a good kid all along. You are naturally good. I hope you know that about yourself. You have a good heart.

Jack Gantos

#33. When Patti Fox broke up with me, I typed her name over a thousand times on my manual Olivetti until the entire page was beaten into a stiff sheet of black ink.

Jack Gantos

#34. My youthful dream of becoming a writer has been realized. I am so pleased I did not let my young self down.

Jack Gantos

#35. Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how well a person makes decisions during difficult times.

Jack Gantos