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
four published
My first four books were not published because nobody wanted them. They were adult books, not kids' books.
played
I played Little League in junior high and high school.
books collecting hard life matter nobody sending
I was very naive, and I thought it was just a matter of writing my first book and sending it in, and for the rest of my life I would be writing books and collecting royalties. Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published.
hate two people
if you learn to hate one or two persons... you'll soon hate millions of people.
feelings calendars timetables
Because life doesn't always happen according to a timetable or calendar. And feelings can't be scheduled.
home long gone
We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home.
perfection waiting glitches
Peace and harmony do not require perfection. Thank goodness for that—because life so often seems to be an itch here, a glitch there, a mess waiting to happen. Harmony is flexible. It bends with imperfection. So should you.
rejection four novel
Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.
communication might diamond
How much better might human communication be if words were as precious as diamonds? If each of us were allotted only 100 words per day?
night light blue
She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.
dream blow competition
Why do we wrap things? Usually to protect them. The more fragile they are, the more important the wrapping. Your dream is prey to many perils. It may shatter under the blows of criticism, evaporate with competition's heat, sink to the bottomless depths of others' indifference. Tend to your dream. Protect it as you would a fallen nestling. Until the day when it—and you—will fly.
home walks
Home is everything you can walk to.
fire lasts facts
Disagreement is not necessarily a reason to head for Splitsville. In fact, a relationship without disagreement is probably too brittle to last. Some of the best human bonds are forged in the fire of disagreement.
pieces playing-chess underwater
I feel like I'm playing chess underwater. The pieces keep floating away. I don't know where things are. I can't figure out tomorrow.