A little hatred goes a long, long way. It grows and grows. And it’s hungry. You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants. It’s never satisfied. And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart and all you’ll have left is a hateful heart.

— Jerry Spinelli

Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.

— Jerry Spinelli

And so I'm me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I'm hoping you wouldn't want it any other way. Not that you weren't flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and self-respect - well, that's trophy enough for any guy's ego, huh?

— Jerry Spinelli

And the trouble with bad times is, you can't sleep through them.

— Jerry Spinelli

As we approached each other, the noise and the surrounding students melted away, and we were utterly alone, passing, smiling, holding each other's eyes, floors and walls gone, two people in a universe of space and stars.

— Jerry Spinelli

At the same time, we held back. Because she was different. Different. We had no one to compare her to, no one to measure her against.

— Jerry Spinelli

At this time in his life Kickoff sees no difference between the stars in the sky and the stars in his mother's plastic Baggie. He believes that stars fall from the sky sometimes, and that his mother goes around collecting them like acorns. He believes she has to use heavy gloves and dark sunglasses because the fallen stars are so hot and shiny. She puts them in the freezer for forty-five minutes, and when they come out they are flat and silver and sticky on the back and ready for his shirts.

— Jerry Spinelli

But she loves her daughter, David can tell, loves her the way David's mother loved him, and sometimes David feels that same love he used to, except now it's coming from other places, other people, and it's a good thing the love is coming because he's beginning to think there aren't enough rules in the universe to bring his mother back.

— Jerry Spinelli

Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?' No,' I said. People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroy or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.

— Jerry Spinelli

Disagreement is not necessarily a reason to head for Pottsville. In fact, a relationship without disagreement is probably too brittle to last. Some of the best human bonds are forged in the fire of disagreement.

— Jerry Spinelli