Wally Serote Quotes

I learned that there are two young men lost in the woods. Not one. Two ... I may never find one of the young men ... He has been gone so long. The odds, I'm afraid may be against it. But as for the other, I may have better luck. The other young man may be calling me. ~ Wally Lamb

I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced. ~ Wally Schirra

The key to peace within my soul, he said, was to cast aside my bitterness and resentment. ~ Wally Lamb

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you. ~ Wally Amos

Respect yourself as well as others; make commitments, not excuses, and make every day a fun day. ~ Wally Amos

Explosive bifurcation is the sudden transition that wrenches the system out of one order, and into another. ~ Wally Lamb

God, that's always the thing you have to decide with high school kids: what to make an issue of, what to let go. ~ Wally Lamb

Visualize your solutions. Picture an answer to the problem. Then make the picture real. ~ Wally Lamb

What fools men are, and what an evil thing is war. ~ Wally Lamb

A purple African violet so lush and fleshy it looked edible ... his fingers as cool and smooth as beach stones. ~ Wally Lamb

Life truly is a journey, and the less baggage we carry the easier the ride. ~ Wally Amos

I think you're being selfish." "What do you mean, selfish?" Wally asked. "A war is for your country, it's serving your country!" "To you, it's an adventure," Candy said. "That's what's selfish about it. ~ John Irving

If Pierre buys a horse for two hundred francs and Jacques buys a mule for a hundred and forty, and the two enter into a partnership and decide to trade their creatures for a piece of land that costs four hundred and eighty francs, then how long will it take a lame Frenchman to borrow a silk umbrella? ~ Wally Lamb

So, you are not so much interested in exploring your feelings about Joy's betrayal. Or the failure of your relationship. You are merely giving me a tour of the museum.'
'The museum? ... I don't follow you.'
'Your museum of pain. Your sanctuary of justifiable indignation.'
'I, uh ... '
'We all superintend such a place, I suppose,' she said, 'although some of us are more painstaking curators than others. That is the category in which I would certainly put you, Dominick. You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you. ~ Wally Lamb

I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned. ~ Wally Lamb

I don't claim to know everything, Wally. I only claim that everything can eventually be known. ~ S.A. Tawks

She saw it over and over again in her male patients, she said - it could probably qualify as an epidemic among American men: this stubborn reluctance to embrace our wholeness - this stoic denial that we had come from our mothers as well as our fathers. It was sad, really - tragic. So wasteful of human lives, as our wars and drive-by shootings kept proving to us; all one had to do was turn on CNN or CBS News. And yet, it was comic, too - the lengths most men went to to prove that they were tough guys. ~ Wally Lamb

I pulled my hand away. It felt numb and oversized, a paw. ~ Wally Lamb

There's no need to fear, Underdog is here! ~ Wally Cox

Finn caught my expression and cuffed my chin. "What?"
"I'm feeling especially Hank Shelby-ish at the moment, Clyde. Mean and ugly. I need a miracle makeover, and I don't think I can pull one out of a Wally bag."
"We've come this far, Bonnie Rae. We can find a dress in a party town like Vegas with our hands tied behind our backs. We have five hours, and we're in walking distance of everything. Don't cry, Hank. We'll find you a pretty dress." He winked at me, and I gave him a smile, but Finn had no idea what he was getting into. I decided not to even try to explain ~ Amy Harmon

People are not like Tupperware, with their lids on securely. ~ Wally Lamb

Joined together, they made a kind of centaur - half bastard, half bitch. Dottie would have laughed out loud at that. ~ Wally Lamb

Feeling weightless ... it's so many things together. A feeling of pride, of healthy solitude, of dignified freedom from everything that's dirty, sticky. You feel exquisitely comfortable ... and you feel you have so much energy, such an urge to do things, such an ability to do things. And you work well, yes, you think well, without sweat, without difficulty as if the biblical curse in the sweat of thy face and in sorrow no longer exists, As if you've been born again. ~ Wally Schirra

The girls changing in the gym watched her from the other side of the room the first time she went in, and one of the nuns was sitting there as well, just because Stella was there. They took her into a meeting in school and she had to say in advance that she wasn't a lesbian, or they wouldn't have let her even try to use the girls' changing room. They asked her if she was still a Christian. She explained that her family are not religious. They asked her what she knew of damnation. She asked them what they knew of autonomy. They asked her how she knew that word. She asked if they had met her mother. They said they would pray for her. She said it was not necessary. They asked if she might feel different in a few months, or if perhaps she would simply change for gym in the janitor's cupboard. She said she'd felt like this her whole life and no amount of praying was going to change it and she could use the janitor's cupboard to change, but she was a person, not a broom. They said she needed to find Jesus. She asked if it was like finding Wally? Only one nun knew what she meant. That little drawing in those old comic strips her mum had, when you look for the dweeby guy in the stripy hat. ~ Jenni Fagan

my sympathy. And my gratitude." "Your gratitude? For what?" "For sharing that information with me. I know you are a private person, Mr. Birdsey. Thank you for trusting me. ~ Wally Lamb

Life's a shit sandwich, my ass. Life's a polka and don't you forget it! ~ Wally Lamb

4. Q: What did the oyster say to the crab when he took his pearl? A: Don't be so shellfish! ~ Wally Pleasant

AFTER I DELIVERED VELVET BACK to the farmhouse that night, I entered the condo and walked over to my Minotauromachia. And as I stood before it, it was crystal clear to me that the terrible monster was doomed in the face of the powerful little girl. ~ Wally Lamb

... you know what was really messing me up when I got down there to Pittsburgh? Was how young he seemed. He kept asking me things like what did I think of Kanye West's music, and did I think he should hold on to Kevin Garnett in this fantasy basketball league he was in or trade him. And how he wasn't just in this league; he was commissioner of it. Like that was some big mark of distinction: commissioner of make-believe. And I wanted to slam him, one-handed, against the wall, the way he used to do to me, and scream in his face, 'Stop it! Act your age!' ... I didn't do it, though. I wanted to, but I couldn't. 'Honor thy father,' you know what I'm saying? So instead, I grabbed my car keys, got out of there, and took off. It was messing with my head, you know? You get out of there alive, more or less, wait for your father to come see you at the hospital you're stuck at, and when you finally go to see him, he's younger than you are. ~ Wally Lamb

O'er rivers, through woods,
With winding and weaves,
Their school bus sailed on
Through the new-fallen leaves.

When out on the road
There arose such a clatter,
They threw down their windows
To see what was the matter.

When what with their wondering eyes
Should they see,
But a miniature farm
And eight tiny turkey.

And a little old man
So lively and rugged,
They knew in a moment
It was Farmer Mack Nuggett.

He was dressed all in denim
From his head to his toe,
With a pinch of polyester
And a dash of Velcro.

And then in a twinkling
They heard in the straw
The prancing and pawing
Of each little claw.

More rapid than chickens
His cockerels they came.
He whistled and shouted
And called them by name:

"Now Ollie, now Stanley, now Larry and Moe,
On Wally, on Beaver, on Shemp and Groucho! ~ Dav Pilkey

Your mother mentioned she had a little girl. These are for you, sweetheart. Just a little something, heh heh."
He handed me a wrinkled paper bag with a grease spot on it. I hate it when you could hear a person's saliva right in their laugh. ~ Wally Lamb

The hair on your head affects people and is a testament to the world about who you are.
- Bonnie Foreshaw (Tabatha Rowley's story) ~ Wally Lamb

I understand there was some controversy about the coroner's ruling concerning Josephus Jones's ~ Wally Lamb

Blood banged inside my head. I loved my brother. I hated him. There was no solution to who he was. No getting back who he had been. ~ Wally Lamb

If he wanted to pray, she told him, he should go to a church, not the library. ~ Wally Lamb

What I really, hugely, and antagonistically dislike is the attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. And if you are a branding consultant, you have to accept that there are a lot of things you just cannot quantify. ~ Wally Olins

The "what-ifs": they'll do a number on you. ~ Wally Lamb

That's what movies are, right? Thousands of still pictures taken months or years or decades before - streams of images burned onto celluloid that are reeled in front of a lamp and projected onto a screen, allowing us the illusion that they're alive. Flickers of light and dark. Brightness and shadow that won't stand still - like life itself. ~ Wally Lamb

I do believe that there's life after love, and also that there is love, still, after a life is over. ~ Wally Lamb