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1 " [A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived. "
― Richard Peck
2 " The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you. "
3 " I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody. "
4 " Never worry about a book corrupting a child. Worry if your children are not getting ideas from books. "
5 " Stay away from people who don't know who they are but want you to be just like them. People who'll want to label you. People who'll try to write their fears on your face. "
― Richard Peck , The Best Man
6 " If you cannot find yourself on the page very early in life, you will go looking for yourself in all the wrong places. "
7 " As I pen these words to leave a lasting record, I wonder myself where it all began. "
― Richard Peck , Ghosts I Have Been (Blossom Culp, #2)
8 " Fiction isn't what 'was'. It's 'what if'? "
― Richard Peck , A Season of Gifts (A Long Way from Chicago, #3)
9 " The years went by, and Mary Alice and I grew up, Slower than we wanted to, faster than we realized. "
― Richard Peck , A Long Way from Chicago (A Long Way from Chicago, #1)
10 " Fame is a funny thing, like a secret, both are hard to keep. "
― Richard Peck , Secrets at Sea
11 " Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city. "
― Richard Peck , A Year Down Yonder (A Long Way from Chicago, #2)
12 " Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city. "
13 " But put two librarians' heads together, and mountains move. "
― Richard Peck , Here Lies the Librarian
14 " Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself. "
15 " This is how you hold onto your family. You hold them with open hands so they are free to find futures of their own. It's just that simple. "
16 " If you're going to read minds, start with a simple one. "
17 " That meant I could come back whenever I could manage it. And she was telling me to go. She knew the decision was too big a load for me to carry by myself. She knew me through and through. She had eyes in the back of her heart. "
18 " I caught a glimpse of happiness, and saw it was a bird on a branch, fixing to take wing. "
― Richard Peck , The River Between Us
19 " ...they'd just tell you to turn the other cheek, wouldn't they?...Trouble is, Mrs. Dowdel observed, after you've turned the other cheek four times, you run out of cheeks. "
20 " At last she said, "Them Burdicks isn't worth the powder and shot to blow them up. They're like a pack of hound dogs. They'll chase livestock, suck eggs, and lick the skillet. And steal? They'd steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke. "