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
played
I played Little League in junior high and high school.
rarely since stands
I pointedly avoid doing sequels, since for the most part I find that a sequel rarely stands up to the original.
kids preaching
I don't really write for adults or kids - I don't write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that; otherwise, you end up preaching down. You need to listen not so much to the audience but to the story itself.
became cowboy define hesitate label wonder
I never became a cowboy or baseball player, and now I'm beginning to wonder if I ever really became a writer. I find that I hesitate to put that label on myself, to define myself by what I do for a living.
across alone bikes creatures great rip
In 'Hokey Pokey,' bikes are kind of more than bikes alone. They become mustangs; they become creatures that rip up the dust as they gallop across the Great Plains.
life rain eye
I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl…. And… I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I’m not outside my world anymore, and I’m not really inside it either. The thing is, there’s no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.
butterfly mind cactus
In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew
feel-better letters doe
Letter from Mr. B: Why does a back scratch feel better coming from somebody else than if you do it yourself?
sun said cloudy
He said even if it's too cloudy to see, the sun will still rise, it will still be there. "But that's the whole point," I said. "Seeing it." "Is it?" he said.
mind sitting body
It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.
thinking doe doers
He doesn't think. He just does. A nonthinking doer.
facts careful
Be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.
flower dark moon
I think of the flower in the bud: huddled, compressed, dark. Yet somehow it feels the night, knows moon from sun. It waits...waits.
today live-for-today tomorrow
Live today like there's no tomorrow!