Words matter. These are the best Chris Crutcher Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
My first book, ‘Running Loose’, was censored back in 1983 or ’84. Every book I’ve written since has been censored somewhere.
Any writer my age almost can’t get away from being influenced by Kurt Vonnegut, partially because of his simple, clear way of stating things. To read Vonnegut is to learn how to use economy words.
I can’t think of a subject that is taboo for me, unless it’s one I simply don’t know anything about.
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking.
When I turned 50, I realized I was now going to start counting backwards in terms of the years I had left. Then I turned 60, and I just stopped counting. I don’t have a fear of death, but I have an awareness that there’s a time limit.
Athletics carries its own set of truths, and those truths are diminished when manipulated by people with agendas.
‘Deadline’ is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what’s important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.
If we are to stop bullying in schools, we have to start with teachers and administrators. If we want to stop it, we have to stop it.
You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.
I have made a career of creating characters who fight school authority and chomp at the bit to get out into the ‘real’ world and live their lives, mostly because that’s the kind of teenager I was.
If you’ve seen ‘Friday Night Lights’ – that was just like my town.
By the time a kid goes to college, if he’s taking math or science, at least he knows, or you hope he knows, some basics. But if you’re teaching history in college, you have a lot of damage to undo. You basically have to start over because so much of what a kid has already learned is just wrong.
The kids you turn your backs on when you take away their stories are the ones who lose, as well as you as a community of adults who may appear to fear their truths.
I am for anything that makes teens visible in an honest way… in other words, anything that represents them the way they are, positively or negatively.
It’s hard to imagine my life not writing. I love it.
When you’re watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you’ve found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren’t the same exact experience.
I think the value in books like mine, and a great number by other talented writers, is in the ability to bring dark subjects into the open where they are not so dark, where they can be talked about and considered by teens and adults alike.
It seems to me if you don’t know anything about child development you shouldn’t intimate in your ‘reporting’ that you do.
Nothing about life is sacred until we make it so.
I have no personal agenda in whether or not a library keeps ‘Whale Talk’ or ‘Athletic Shorts’ or any of my books shelved.
My years as a therapist working with abuse and neglect families taught me at least one important lesson for my own life. Never judge until you can see through the eyes of that person you are judging, and then… never judge.
The frustration for a parent is that you might be available all the time, but the kid may approach you only about 10% of the time.
What I hope my writing reflects… is a sense of the connections between all human beings… and a different perspective on the true nature of courage. For me, those are things worth exploring and writing about.
Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.
If you’re writing about angry people, you use the language of anger. If you’re writing about desperate people, you use the language of desperation.
If we’re going to make a real dent in the bullying issue, we’re going to have to address the bullies themselves: find ways to help empower them that don’t include allowing them to be predators or to simply be punished.
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a part of the voice I need.
I want to look at this character from all points of view. I know I don’t want to make them all good or all bad or all anything… the story itself often helps create the character.
If I have any complaints about my youth… one is that many well-meaning adults lied to me. Not spiteful lies with malicious intent but lies designed to prevent emotional and psychological pain – lies told by the people who cared about me most: my parents, teachers, relatives.
A sport has its own built-in integrity – doesn’t need an artificial one.
