Walter Dean Myers quotes

One of the lessons learned during the Vietnam War was that the depiction of wounded soldiers, of coffins stacked higher than their living guards, had a negative effect on the viewing public. The military in Iraq specifically banned the photographing of wounded soldiers and coffins, thus sanitizing this terrible and bloody conflict. (Walter Dean Myers)
I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I had seen the ballet of 'Swan Lake' as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
So many organizations have a mentoring arm, but they don't really do it. Their idea of mentoring a kid is giving them general advice. But what they need to do is read with children. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
Reading is not optional. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER. (Walter Dean Myers)
Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
My life is not packaged, Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged Edges that cut even my friends. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I couldn't speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
Each generation seems to invent its own reasons for war. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
As a young man, I saw families prosper without reading because there were always sufficient opportunities for willing workers who could follow simple instructions. This is no longer the case. Children who don't read are, in the main, destined for lesser lives. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to change this. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I know what falling off the cliff means. I know from being considered a very bright kid to being considered like a moron and dropping out of school. (Walter Dean Myers)
I would enjoy having dinner with the poet/playwright Derek Walcott. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
New York is my favorite city. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train. View quote
Walter Dean Myers