Cynthia Lord Quotes

You can yell on a playground, but not during dinner.

If you want to get away from someone, check your watch and say, Sorry, gotta go!

Why can't the world be simpler, like it is for guinea pigs? They only have a few rules: Crying will get you attention. If it fits in your mouth, it's food. Scream if you don't get your share.

(I)t's just as important to show the hard things in the world as it is to show the beautiful ones. Even in the midst of horrible things, there are little bits of wonder, and all of it's true.

People say it's better to know the truth, but what if the ending's a bad one? Is it still better to know? Or is it kinder to keep that string of hope dangling? To believe that maybe if you just wait long enough, everything could still end the way you want.

...choosing words is harder than I thought.

Giving up and letting go are too very different things, Lily. Giving up is admitting you're beat and walking away. Letting go means you're setting something free. You're releasing something that's been keeping you stuck. That takes faith and more than a little courage" -Pepere

Looking closer can make something beautiful

Different can be good. It makes you pay attention -Dr. Katz

Even half a chance beats none.

Just because other people think something, that doesn't make it true.
Maybe there's some truth in that, but it's unsatisfying, bitter-tasting truth.

Yeah, but 'beyond reach' means you want to reach something. It's more than far away; there's an absence. Missing something you can't have.

As we continued upward, I thought about how adults sometimes complain that kids only think about ourselves, but it's not true. We care a lot about other people, but most times, we don't have the power to change things for them.

If you can get people to care about the little things, they'll care about the big things, too.

It's easy to remember only the good parts of people if you never see them. Real people are much more complicated.

Maybe when we see things all the time, we stop really looking at them. And it takes an artist, someone who can look past the ordinariness, to remind us how special they really are" -Lily

Wishes are slippery things. You have to be very specific or you can get exactly what you wished for and still end up with nothing.

I was feeling a bit scared, and I realized something. To do brave things, you don't have to be hugely brave. You only have to be a little bit braver than you are scared." -Lily

How else can hopes go but up?

It must take some courage to fly, to trust the wind to hold you as it lifts you away from all you've ever known. To know inside that you're heading where you're meant to go - even if you've never been there before. And that 'I hope so' will be enough to get you there.

No toys in the fish tank

All she had to do was tell the truth. This would be easy.
I should've known, though.
Real truth is never easy" -Lily

When you say something stupid, gloss over it with superfast talking and maybe no one'll notice.

Don't ever choose the people who don't matter over the ones that do.

I wish everyone had the same chances," I say. "Because it stinks a big one that they don't." - Catherine

Stay because you want to be here. Stay because we would miss you. And stay because you can belong in more than one place, and one of your places is with us.

Touch blue and your wish will come true.

What I love about art is that anything is possible. Bees can be pink. Trees can be purple. It's like taking the world as it is and then swirling it around to show how it could be" -Salma

Oh, people will think what they think! ... Don't ever choose the people who don't matter over the ones who do.

At some point, you just have to choose. And then be brave enough to stand up to the people who think you made the wrong choice.

Good things matter, even when they don't last forever.

When someone is upset, it's not a good time to bring up your own problems.

Sometimes I wish someone would invent a pill so David'd wake up one morning without autism, like someone waking from a long coma, and he'd say, Jeez, Catherine, where have I been?

I think art can take ordinary things and show them to you like it's the first time you've ever seen them. And you realize that even ordinary things aren't really ordinary at all" -Salma

It's scary to try something different when you don't know how it'll work out, but that's when the best things can happen. The things that surprise you and change you. Those things can make *you* different" -Salma

Looking at the poster, I thought, Maybe we can't solve every big problem, but we can try to solve the ones we can.

Sometimes people don't answer because they didn't hear you, Other times it's because they don't want to hear you!

Not everything worth keeping needs to be useful