179 Quotes by 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.

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.

As a kid I didn’t see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn’t do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.

I was teased if I brought my books home. I would take a paper bag to the library and put the books in the bag and bring them home. Not that I was that concerned about them teasing me – because I would hit them in a heartbeat. But I felt a little ashamed, having books.

Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. It is a strange movie with no plot and no beginning. The movie is in black and white, and grainy.

There was a baseball game on but it didn’t look real. It was guys in uniforms playing games on a deep green field. They were playing baseball as if baseball was important and as if all the world wasn’t in jail, watching them from a completely different world.

She is the only rose that doesn’t smell of plastic.

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I’ll be happy.