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12b6891
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If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can't be in books. The book needs you.
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Gary Paulsen |
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21cf87b
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I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.
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reading
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Gary Paulsen |
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1867169
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Why do I read? I just can't help myself. I read to learn and to grow, to laugh and to be motivated. I read to understand things I've never been exposed to. I read when I'm crabby, when I've just said monumentally dumb things to the people I love. I read for strength to help me when I feel broken, discouraged, and afraid. I read when I'm angry at the whole world. I read when everything is going right. I read to find hope. I read ..
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Gary Paulsen |
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045c9d7
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Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.
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waiting
thinking
patience
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Gary Paulsen |
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643fd5b
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He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that--it didn't work.
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Gary Paulsen |
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6405da1
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I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me. The sea.
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sea
ocean
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Gary Paulsen |
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b608ace
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And the last thought he had that morning as he closed his eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.
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Gary Paulsen |
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d1321db
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She was brilliant and joyous and she believed- probably correctly- that libraries contain the answers to all things, to everything, and that if you can't find the information you seek in the library, then such information probably doesn't exist in this or any parallel universe now or ever to be known. She was thoughtful and kind and she always believed the best of everybody. She was, above all else, a master librarian and she knew where to ..
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libraries
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Gary Paulsen |
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01526fd
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this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath...
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sailing
wind
sea
ocean
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Gary Paulsen |
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204978b
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That's all it took to solve problems - just sense.
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Gary Paulsen |
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df9fe7a
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When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.
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Gary Paulsen |
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309d80e
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He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream. They had taken it all away from him now, they had turned away from him and there was nothing for him now...He was alone and there was nothing for him.
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Gary Paulsen |
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88fbc8f
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All the luck in the world has to come every year, in every part of every year, or there is not a harvest and then the luck, the bad luck will come and everything we are, all that we can ever be, all the Einsteins and babies and love and hate, all the joy and sadness and sex and wanting and liking and disliking, all the soft summer breezes on cheeks and first snowflakes, all the Van Goghs and Rembrandts and Mozarts and Mahlers and Thomas Jef..
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Gary Paulsen |
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6dc0317
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He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him. And he had to keep hoping.
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Gary Paulsen |
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b207e28
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Things seemed to go back and forth between reality and imagination--except that it was all reality.
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Gary Paulsen |
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5a1e54d
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Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.
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Gary Paulsen |
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9000c3c
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She was beautiful in a way that only wild things can be beautiful.
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nature
wild
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Gary Paulsen |
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fae5072
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Brian looked back and for a moment felt afraid because the wolf was so... so right. He knew Brian, knew him and owned him and chose not to do anything to him. But the fear moved then, moved away,and Brian knew the wolf for what it was - another part of the woods, another part of all of it.
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Gary Paulsen |
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84d8ed0
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the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work.
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Gary Paulsen |
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5100d7b
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You can take the man out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the man.
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Gary Paulsen |
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7648c08
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Initially, he worried that he might be going crazy. But then he decided if you felt you were crazy you weren't really crazy because he had heard somewhere that crazy people didn't know they were insane.
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Gary Paulsen |
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c4b61a3
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Do what you can as you can. Trouble, problems, will come no matter what you do , and you must respond as they come.
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Gary Paulsen |
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ef63a16
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This is going to be murder," Fransic whispered to Mr. Trimes. "Pure murder." "I'm glad to see your confidence returning, Mr. Tucket. Just a few minutes ago you were ready to give up. Now you're talking about killing him." "I meant it the other way." "Oh."
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murder
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Gary Paulsen |
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c43f372
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It was a strange feeling, holding the rifle. It somehow removed him from everything around him. Without the rifle he had to fit in, to be part of it all, to understand it and use it - the woods, all of it. With the rifle, suddenly, he didn't have to know, did not have to be afraid or understand. He didn't have to get close to a foolbird to kill it - didn't have to know how it would stand if he didn't look at it and moved off to the side. Th..
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Gary Paulsen |
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2c24553
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He could see it now. Oh, yes, all as he ran in the sun, his legs liquid springs.
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Gary Paulsen |
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f5d2534
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We don't like to think of ourselves as prey--it is a lessening thought--but the truth is that in our arrogance and so-called knowledge we forget that we are not unique. We are part of nature as much as other animals, and some animals--sharks, fever-bearing mosquitoes, wolves and bear, to name but a few--perceive us as a food source, a meat supply, and simply did not get the memo about how humans are superior. It can be shocking, humbling, p..
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Gary Paulsen |
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362a463
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Not hope that he would be rescued--that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of tough hope.
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Gary Paulsen |
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4e00052
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Everything was green, so green it went into him.
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Gary Paulsen |
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cf1278e
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I am full of tough hope
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Gary Paulsen |
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c5b309e
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He had learned this: Nothing that lived, nothing that walked or crawled or flew or swam or slithered or oozed--nothing, not one thing on God's earth wanted to die. No matter what people thought or said about chickens or fish or cattle--they all wanted to live.
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Gary Paulsen |
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77da86e
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The book is that is the good one is Woodsong and we are trying to finish it.
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Gary Paulsen |
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79b781d
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This is the final book about Brian
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Gary Paulsen |
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c78bd67
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I couldn't change the wind but perhaps I could reduce the effect of the wind on the boat.
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Gary Paulsen |
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e2dacc4
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Misery is optional.
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Gary Paulsen |
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55ced97
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To know things, for us to know things, is bad for them. We get to wanting and when we get to wanting it's bad for them. They thinks we want what they got . . . . That's why they don't want us reading.
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Gary Paulsen |
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6168dbd
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Maybe it was always that way, discoveries happened because they needed to happen.
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Gary Paulsen |
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741b40a
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But the beauty of the woods, the incredible joy of it is too alluring to be ignored, and I could not stand to be away from it--indeed, still can't--and so I ran dogs simply to run dogs; to be in and part of the forest, the woods
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Gary Paulsen |
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bfc135d
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You want to stay hungry...to learn. You get full, you get sleepy, lazy; you get lazy, you don't learn.
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Gary Paulsen |
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400a5eb
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He moved to the trees. Where the bark was peeling from the trunks it lifted in tiny tendrils, almost fluffs. Brian plucked some of them loose, rolled them in his fingers. They seemed flammable, dry and nearly powdery. He pulled and twisted bits off the trees, packing them in one hand while he picked them with the other, picking and gathering until he had a wad close to the size of a baseball. Then he went back into the shelter and arranged ..
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Gary Paulsen |
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f1057c4
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If his mother hadn't begun to see him and forced the divorce, Brian wouldn't be here now. He
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Gary Paulsen |
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cc9ac03
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Change is good, but sometimes leaving things the way they've always been is better.
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Gary Paulsen |
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1cf6fa5
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And he's never met anyone like Harris, his unruly daredevil of a cousin.
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Gary Paulsen |
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3aff154
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In a real situation, like when I was here before, there were things wrong--going wrong. The plane didn't land and set me on the shore. It crashed. A man was dead. I was hurt. I didn't know anything. Nothing at all. I was, maybe, close to death and now we're out here going la-de-da, I've got a fish; la-de-da, there are some more berries.
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Gary Paulsen |
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62a6d9d
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I began to understand that they are not wrong or right--they just are. Wolves don't know they are wolves. That's a name we have put on them, something we have done. I do not know how wolves think of themselves, nor does anybody, but I did know and still know that it was wrong to think they should be the way I wanted them to be.
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Gary Paulsen |