Top 25 Jerry Spinelli Quotes

When people hear I have six kids and 16 grandkids, they think, ‘Oh, boy, you must get a lot of stories from them.’ I don’t. It’s not like I’m behind the sofa in the living room taking notes while the grandkids carry on.

Actually, between books is precisely when I do give myself vacations.

In my mind, I’m writing for everybody.

My first four books were not published because nobody wanted them. They were adult books, not kids’ books.

Sometimes I’m asked if I do research for my stories. The answer is yes and no. No, in the sense that I seldom plow through books at the library to gather material. Yes, in the sense that the first fifteen years of my life turned out to be one big research project.

I went to Gettysburg College, where the famous Civil War battle was fought. I majored in English. I would’ve liked to major in writing, but they didn’t offer a major in that.

I was very naive, and I thought it was just a matter of writing my first book and sending it in, and for the rest of my life I would be writing books and collecting royalties. Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published.

In ‘Hokey Pokey,’ bikes are kind of more than bikes alone. They become mustangs; they become creatures that rip up the dust as they gallop across the Great Plains.

I would say if you want to write, write what you care about. I think that’s the most important thing. I think if you write what you care about, you stand a better chance of having the reader care about your story.

I spend more time being what I am: a writer, not the visiting celebrity.

Once, I was out of the house 93 days in a year. I was missing grandparents’ days at schools and kids’ birthdays and Valentine’s Day, not to mention the fact that when you’re on the road, you can’t get anything done. I had to learn to say ‘No,’ cut back on travel.

Usually it takes me about nine to 12 months to write a book.

I pointedly avoid doing sequels, since for the most part I find that a sequel rarely stands up to the original.

Even including myself, my favorite author is Eileen Spinelli, who I happen to live with. She’s a terrific writer and has written several of my all-time favorites.

I became a children’s author by accident. As far as I’m concerned, I write for everybody.

I never became a cowboy or baseball player, and now I’m beginning to wonder if I ever really became a writer. I find that I hesitate to put that label on myself, to define myself by what I do for a living.

More often than not, my reference point is not the kids or the grandkids but myself when I was that age. I remember the days at Hartranft Elementary and Stewart Junior High in Norristown.

I became a children’s author by accident.

There are bits and pieces of me probably in every one of my 35 or so books.

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.

Most people are looking for a challenging, interesting job. I wanted a boring, undemanding job so that I could forget about it at 5, so that I would have something left over at the end of the day to do my own stuff.

Now I don’t really write for adults or kids – I don’t write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that, otherwise you end up preaching down.

I don’t really write for adults or kids – I don’t write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that; otherwise, you end up preaching down. You need to listen not so much to the audience but to the story itself.

I seem to have a natural tendency to want to share my own observations and feelings with other people, and writing seems to be the way I’m best equipped to do that.

I’ve been writing since I was sixteen. At first, I wrote mostly short stories and poetry. The first thing I ever had published was a poem about a football game. It was printed in my local newspaper.