Home > Author > Paul Fleischman
1 " The red-jacketed band stirred to life. The first musician raised his trumpet. The trombone dipped. The drumstick rose. Lea lowered her clarinet. It had been Brent's idea not to have their insturments rise and fall in unison. The staggered motion gave it a more exciting rhythm. "
― Paul Fleischman , Whirligig
2 " A picture tells a thousand words. But you get a thousand pictures from someone's voice. "
― Paul Fleischman , Seek
3 " It was a girl playing a harp, like in an orchestra. It was in this tree at our campsite. And since it was breezy weather that weekend, the girl's arms were almost always turning. "
4 " The whirligig featured a drummer, a trumpet player, a clarinetist, and a man with a trombone. It was a leap beyond the spouting whale, with more figures, a six-bladed propeller, and a much more complex system of rods and pivots that made the instruments dip and rise as if the musicians were marching. "
5 " It was a figure of a whale, with a white triangle that was supposed to be its spray. The spray moved up and down above the blowhole. On top of the spray sat a black-haired woman. "
6 " I came to that wooden marching band. I stopped and looked. There was a trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and drum. Birds don't live alone, I told myself. They live in flocks. Like people. People are always in a group. Like that little wooden band. "
7 " It was as big as a box kite and mounted on a pole, gesticulating wildly with moving arms, vanes, wheels, and propellers larger and small. I'd never seen it. It was all different colors. It didn't resemble anything in particular, except at the top, where there was a woman's head. Attached to her hair were three reflectors. Shells and chimes hung around her neck. Even with half the moving parts stuck, a gust blowing through it set off a flurry of fluttering and shimmering and ringing, as if a flock of exotic birds was taking flight. "
― Paul Fleischman
8 " You can't see Canada across Lake Erie, but you know it's there. It's the same with spring. You have to have faith, especially in Cleveland. Snow in April always breaks your heart. "
― Paul Fleischman , Seedfolks
9 " Why do I need TV when I have forty-eight apartment windows to watch across the vacant lot, and a sliver of Lake Erie? I've seen history out this window. So much. I was four when we moved here in 1919. The fruit-sellers' carts and coal wagons were pulled down the street by horses back then. I used to stand just here and watch the coal brought up by the handsome lad from Groza, the village my parents were born in. Gibb Street was mainly Rumanians back then. It was "Adio" - "Good-bye"- in all the shops when you left. Then the Rumanians started leaving. They weren't the first, or the last. This has always been a working-class neighborhood. It's like a cheap hotel - you stay until you've got enough money to leave. "
10 " The sidewalk was completely empty. It was Sunday, early April. An icy wind teetered trash cans and turned my cheeks to marble. In Vietnam we had no weather like that. Here in Cleveland people call it spring. "
11 " Television, I'm afraid, has isolated us more than race, class, or ethnicity. "
12 " When we have no families, we must find support elsewhere. Sometimes in strangers. We're all alone on this earth. We must take any hand that's offered us. I offer you mine...I'll be your friend, if you wish. The faithful kind. —Elva "
― Paul Fleischman , Mind's Eye
13 " The word "paradise" came out of my mouth, without thinking. "
14 " the ancient Egyptians prescribed walking through a garden as a cure for the mad. "
15 " There's plenty about my life I can't change. Can't bring the dead back to life on this earth. Can't make the world loving and kind. Can't change myself into a millionaire. But a patch of ground in this trashy lot -- I can change that. Can change it big. Better to put my time into that than moaning about the other all day. "
16 " But determination can make the miraculous possible. "
17 " Isn't that the essence of literature?...Our ability to identify with characters, no matter that they're separated from us by thousands of miles and hundreds of lifetimes. We may have no Mount Vesuvius looming over us. It may not be lava and ashes we fear. But we look at these forms, and we know what they felt. "
18 " [Community gardens] were oases in the urban landscape of fear, places where people could safely offer trust, helpfulness, charity, without need of an earthquake or hurricane...Community gardens are places where people rediscover not only generosity, but the pleasure of coming together. I salute all those who give their time and talents to rebuilding that sense of belonging. "
19 " He desired to become the man he was impersonating. "
20 " My class had sprouted lima beans in paper cups the year before. I now placed a bean in each of the holes. I covered them up, pressing the soil down firmly with my fingertips. I opened my thermos and watered them all. And I vowed to myself that those beans would thrive. "
