Matthew Dicks Quotes

I love you, Max,' I whisper as his face and everything else in the world fades to white

He has a lot going on inside of him all the time so he doesn't worry so much about what is going on outside him. That's what people don't understand

The house reminds me of our house when Max's parents were trying to sell it [...]
Every time the strangers came over to look at the house, Max's parents would push all of the papers and magazines into a kitchen drawer and throw all the clothes on the floor into a closet. And they would make their bed, which they never do. They had to make it look like no one in the house ever forgot to put anything away so the strangers would see what the house looked like if perfect people lived inside.
That's what Mrs. Patterson's house looks like. It looks ready for strangers to come over.

Monsters are bad things, but monsters that do not walk and talk like monsters are the worst.

They are working hard and fast, but they are just doing what they are supposed to do. I see the same look on the faces of some of Max's teachers when Max doesn't understand something and the teacher doesn't think he will ever understand it. The teachers work hard, but you can tell that they are just doing the lesson. Not teaching the lesson. That's what the doctors look like now. They are doing the doctoring but they do not believe in the doctoring.

Max's father likes to tell people that he and Max play catch every night in the backyard, like they are doing tonight. He tells everyone he can, sometimes more than once, but he usually waits until Max's mom isn't around before he says it. Sometimes he says it just after she leaves the room if he knows that she's coming right back.

But he and Max don't really play catch. Max's dad throws the ball to Max, and Max lets it hit the ground and roll, and when it stops moving, he picks it up and tries to throw it back. Except Max's dad never stands close enough for Max to reach him, even though he tells Max to "Step into it!" and "Throw with your body!" and "Give it your all, son!"

Whenever they play catch, Max's dad calls Max "son" instead of "Max."

But even if Max steps into it or gives it his all (I don't know what either of those things mean, and I don't think Max does either,) the ball never reaches his dad.

If Max's dad wants the ball to reach him, why doesn't he just stand closer?

A person is more than a person. A person is the promise of everything that person can be.

There's no great dividing line between being a kid and an adult. We're not all caterpillars turning into butterflies. You are what you are. When you grow up, you may be more careful than when you were a kid. You don't say what you think as much as you once did. You learn to play nice. But you're still the same person who did good things or rotten things when you were young. Whether you feel good about them or bad ... whether you regret them. Well, that's a different thing. But it's not like they disappear forever.

The size of gummy worms compared to the size of gummy bears makes me question the whole gummy universe.

It's strange how teachers can go off to college for all those years to learn to become teachers, but some of them never learn the easy stuff. Like making kids laugh. And making sure they know that you love them.

Max lives on the inside and the other kids live onthe outside. That's what makes him so different. Max doesn't have an outside. Max is all inside

She'll have to help him with the bonus poops, and Tommy Swinden, and all the other little things that Max can't do because he lives so much of his life inside. That big, beautigul inside that once imagined me.

The thing I like best about Max is that he is brave." "What did he do that was brave?" "It's not one thing," I say. "It's everything. Max is not like any other person in the whole world. Kids make fun of him because he is different. His mom tries to change him into a different boy and his dad tries to treat him like he is someone else. Even his teachers treat him differently, and not always nicely. Even Mrs. Gosk. She is perfect but she still treats Max differently. No one treats him like a regular boy, but everyone wants him to be regular instead of himself. With all that, Max still gets out of bed every morning and goes to school and the park and the bus stop and even the kitchen table.

Addition to Dan's Laws of the Universe

If the childhood version of yourself would hate the adulthood version of yourself, you suck at life.

Missed Max but I did not know how much I missed Max until now. Now I know what it feels like to miss someone so much that you can't describe it. I would have to invent new words to describe it.

Solutions are a hell of a lot easier when you're the only one in need of saving. Also, explosives help too.

Read more. It allows you to borrow someone else's brain, and will make you more interesting at a dinner party.

There are two kinds of teachers in the world: there are teachers who play school and teachers who teach school, and Miss Daggerty and Mrs. Sera and especially Mrs. Gosk are the kinds of teachers that teach school. They talk to their kids in their regular voices and say things that they would say in their own living rooms. Their bulletin boards are always a little raggedy, and their desks are always a little messy, and their libraries are always a little out of order, but kids love them because they talk about real things with real voices and they always tell the truth. This is why Max loves Mrs. Gosk. She never pretends to be a teacher. She is just herself, and it makes Max relax a little. There is nothing to figure out.

When do they turn the streetlights on?
Does each streetlight have a separate switch?
Where did all the choo-choo trains go?
Why don't people just draw their own money?
Who decided that red means stop and green means go?
Is there only one moon?
Are all car honks the same?
How do the police stop trees from growing in the middle of the street?
Do people paint their own cars?
What is a fire hydrant?
Why don't people whistle when they walk?
Where do airplanes live when they are not flying?

Maybe we are all somebody's devil.

He doesn't move at all. I think he does this on purpose. If he moved, if he even nodded, then there would be no more sides in the room. Everyone would be on the same side. They would be a team.

He's dancing with the devil in pale moonlight

Dandy, Martin replied, once again pleased with his response. A girl can make a guy feel good, great, and even fabulous, but how often does a lady hear that her man is feeling dandy?
Not often, he guessed.

I do not need to exist for me anymore. I just want to exist for Max. I want to know the rest of Max's story.

Facts about Jesus that I told Kimberly to annoy her
1. Jesus was Jewish
2. Jesus was a socialist
3. Jesus was a refugee
4. Jesus was anti-death penalty
5. Jesus was anti-school prayer (Matthew 6:5)
6. Jesus was opposed to the accumulation of wealth
7. Jesus was silent on the issues of homosexuality and gay marriage
8. Jesus was a brown-skinned Middle Easterner who wore sandals to the dinner table
9. Jesus was a friend to prostitutes

Jessica Trent was a thin, freckled redhead who had more fire in her hair than her demeanor. Caroline had spoken to the mother of two on several occasions, but being that she and Jessica were both fairly shy, they hadn't managed to connect. Shy people, in Caroline's experience, rarely forged successful friendships because they need an extrovert to make things happen. Someone to take the first step, make the first phone call, and assume the initial risk. Shy people like Caroline and Jessica require a facilitator of sorts to get things started, and there had been no one to bring the women together. It was a shame. Caroline suspected that she and Jessica Trent had a lot in common.

You have to be the bravest person in the world to go out every day, being yourself when no one likes who you are.

Just a little bit of shared language and culture can make a person feel like he's standing far outside of a group, wishing to find a way in.

Lions eat giraffes so they can survive even though the giraffes didn't do anything to the lions, and nobody thinks that the lions are wrong.

Give me break," Polly said.

Adults spend their lives unwinding their childhood.

No one really changes. Assholes are always assholes. Angels are always angels. You are the person you've always been. Some people just learn to hide their ugly parts.

Everyone is someone's devil.

Getting shot might kill a person but I don't think it would stop someone from going back to work someday. But getting stuck like Sally might stop a person from ever coming back to work, even to say hello to old friends.