Lisa Graff Quotes

You should do something because you love it, not just because you're good at it.

Well, that's the thing about knots, isn't it? If you don't know the trick, it's a muddled predicament. But in fact each loop of every knot is carefully placed, one end twisting into the other in a way you might not have expected. I find them rather beautiful, really.

Find something you'd want to keep doing forever," she said, "even if you stink at it. And then if you're lucky, with lots of practice, then one day you won't stink so much.

I don't know why I'm always screwing up at everything, even when I try so hard, all the time, not to. I'd do better if I could, I really would. But I don't know how.
There are a lot of things I don't know.

Kids know when you're pulling a fast one, storywise, and I think that even when they're being entertained, children want to hear the truth, just like adults do.

Her favorite animal was sea lions. Mine was giraffes. Her favorite movie was Casablanca, which she said was old and black-and-white and very romantic. She tried to tell me what it was about, but it all sounded about as much fun as eating burned bread crusts.

And when thoughts wiggle their way in, sometimes it can be very difficult for them to wiggle out again.

And you couldn't be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while.

When you do choose to speak, she told me, speak truths.

I desperately want to visit the Galapagos and meet some giant tortoises.

Everyone deserves a sad day once in a while," Calista told me. "Sometimes things are too big for cheering up. Sometimes the best way to make things better is just to let yourself be sad for a little bit.

One of the things I like to do during an 'overhaul' revision is bust out my highlighters and colored pens. Tools like these make me feel like a real writer.

Memory is a curious thing. Some details stick in our minds like peanut butter on crackers, and refuse to budge, as much as we might wish they would. Other memories - heavy ones sometimes, ones that seem unbudgeable - can be plucked right out when we least expect it. Lost memories leave remnants, of course, flavors that linger in the mind, but it's difficult to taste things when you don't know they're there

There was a hint of something lingering in her mind. A memory, perhaps, although Jo could only catch the flavor of a few remaining tendrils.

Some people aren't good at anything. Some people just really like donuts.

He nodded, like that made sense. Then he said, "So why does it bother you when someone calls you a dummy?"...."I'm not going to say that other kids can't be mean sometimes. Sometimes people say things that are just awful." I looked down into my Kleenex. "But you know what to are, Albie. You know what you're worth. At least I hope you do." I folded the tissue over on itself once, then twice, then three times. "And you get to decide what words are hurtful to you. If you ask me, 'dummy' shouldn't hurt you one bit.

I've been a children's book editor, a nanny, a camp counselor, a barista, a research lab assistant, and a movie theater ticket-taker.

It's the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are.

I'd like to have a perfect sense of direction. I could get lost with a GPS strapped to my arm.

When I was in fourth grade, I had a lot of upheaval in my life. Both of my parents remarried, and we all got new houses. That was also the year my older brother got very sick.