Avi Quotes

Know her? Of course I know her. Everyone knows Poppy. She's famous.

He was alive and wished that he was dead, but not being dead, he was scared that he might die.

BEAR WAS DEAD. That sweet and kindly man, the wisest I had ever known, the one I considered friend, teacher, and even father, was gone. Would

Pal, if you ever look up the word right in a dictionary, you'll find it's one of the oldest words in the English language. Even so, people have never stopped arguing about what it means. I suspect they always will.

Rumors are like clouds. Sometimes they bring rain. Sometimes they don't. But there are always clouds.

I took a deep breath. 'For you I've got something better than love.'
What's that?'
I ... trust you.'
Why?'
You'll never hurt me.'
Thank you.'
But ... '
But, what?'
I said, 'That means I'll hurt you.'
Why?'
'Cause, like I said, you'll never hurt me back.

Do you ever smile, boy?" he demanded. "If you can't laugh and smile, life is worthless. Do you hear me?" he yelled. "It's NOTHING!

I definitely have an affection for detective fiction, and when I first read Dashiell Hammett's 'The Maltese Falcon,' that book and its author made an enormous impression on me as a reader and a writer, and led me to other hard-boiled American writers like Raymond Chandler and Ross McDonald, among many.

To become a novelist, the most crucial thing one must do is read, read and read again - gradually you begin to think like a writer. Ideas are not found - they are shaped.

I JUST FINISHED READING WOLF RIDER SUCH A GOOD BOOK...YOU HAVE TO TO READ IT!!!!

Pal, if you don't take some wrong turns, you aren't going anywhere.

I kept asking myself if I felt different, if I was different. The answer was always yes. I was no longer nothing ...
How odd, I thought; it had taken my mother's death, Father Quinel's murder, and the desire of others to kill me to claim a life of my own.

The greater a man's - or boy's - ignorance of the world, the more certain he is that he sits in the center of that world.

Now give me a kiss, say you love me and off you go."
"Sure, Aunt Lu," I said, and I gave her the kiss she wanted. Then I ran out and caught my bus. I didn't say I loved her. I guess I did. But asking someone to say they love you
and she always asked
is like buying yourself a birthday present. It's more than likely exactly what you want. But it must make you feel awfully sad to get it.

The truth is I don't watch TV at all. It bores me.

Avon brightened. 'My plan has always been to write.'
'Exactly,' said Edward. 'Write first. You can always figure out what you've written later.

The boys, hearing this declaration, allowed not the slightest hint that they had ever heard anything like it before.

When bright, it's dark, when darkest, it's gone. When gone for good, so are you.
What am I?

Don't assume that because everyone believes a thing, that it is right or wrong. Reason things out for yourself. Work to get answers on your own. Understand why you believe things.

A sailor chooses the wind that takes the ship from a safe port. Ah, yes, but once you're abroad, as you have seen, winds have a mind of their own. Be careful, Charlotte, careful of the wind you choose.

What could I write that has only two words?"
"A very, very short story."
"Could you give me an example?" asked Avon.
Edward thought for a moment. "Here's one: 'He died.'"
"That doesn't seem very lively," said Avon.
"Then you've understood the story perfectly," said Edward.

Like Indian corn in August, the "what ifs" in my life were growing fast. Too fast.

Magic," her mother said, "is a kind of hope. And wishes are like dreams. When we have them, we can make things change. Without, we stay the same.

The more men see of the world, the bigger their hearts

I think you become a writer when you stop writing for yourself or your teachers and start thinking about readers.

For some 25 years, I worked as a librarian, first at the New York Public Library, then at Trenton State College in New Jersey. My life has always been with, around, and for books.

Love is 'evil' spelled backward
with an i instead of an o.

Then the silence came back, that awful silence that seemed to just take over.
In that silence I kept hearing what I had said
heard it repeating itself over and over again like a stuck record. I wanted it to stop. I didn't want to say things like that anymore. I was sick of that kind of lying. I wished I could say something real.
But the silence was too big.

I was born in New York City, along with a twin sister. I am five minutes older than Emily. It was Emily, for reasons no one knows - she certainly doesn't - who called me Avi. It stuck. It's the only name I use now.

Everybody has ideas. The vital question is, what do you do with them? My rock musician sons shape their ideas into music. My sister takes her ideas and fashions them into poems. My brother uses his ideas to help him understand science. I take my ideas and turn them into stories.

A lot of people think inspiration means magic. But really, inspiration means to put life into something.

It all depends on you. If you want it to be different,it will be different. Don't look at the world with your eyes but with your heart.

I want my readers to feel, to think, sometimes to laugh. But most of all I want them to enjoy a good read.

Every night, I was read to. Every Friday, we were taken to the library. I always received at least one book for my birthday. I have a few of them yet. Early on, I had my own collection of books. I loved to read. Still do.

Writers don't write writing, they write reading. When I was a kid, I read four or five books a week. And that is how I became a writer.

Understanding that, I know I have not seen a ghost. I am not mad. It is something more extraordinary than that. I have made a mistake!

A sailor may choose the wind to ride out of seaport, but the wind has a mind of it's own.

She can be fierce, but for all of that she's actually kindness itself.

To love a man, you must know his sins.'"
"At the Edge of the World.

Listen and watch the world around you. Don't be satisfied with answers others give you.

Writing takes a lot of patience. It usually takes me a year to write a book. One time, it took me 14 years to write a book, not that I worked on it every day.

The cure for unhappiness ... It's this: What a person needs is always more than they say.

All I can think is that when you torment a person ... the soul dies. When the soul dies, I suppose mercy dies, too.

There is a limit to how much a seer wishes to see.

To resist a challenge is to resist life itself -Mogwat Of all challenges the greatest is to be yourself. Truth is often painful to speak but soothing to live.

A mouse has to do what a mouse has to do