Quotes from Andrew Clements

But some kids, they have to prove they're smart.

Mrs. Byrne." Mrs. Byrne smiled. "Hello, Nora. You look a little down. Hard day?" I nodded and said, "Yeah.

But all he could really do was his best, each moment. That was what mattered most—even more than the final outcome. Because the final outcome wasn't up to him alone.

And that's Jake Drake, Know-It-All.

The whole book stays put, right there all the time, always the same, with the words perfectly lined up one after another, waiting.

Real life is so…messy.

Change couldn't be stopped...but people always had choices, didn't they? Even if change was being forced on you...you still had a choice: You could either give up and accept someone else's ideas about change, or you could fight for the kind of changes you believed in.

David?" Dave had been home five minutes when he heard his mom come in the front door and call his name. He was upstairs. In the bathroom. She called again. "David, answer me!" To be more specific, Dave was sitting on the toilet. "DAVID! ANSWER ME!" Dave knew that tone of voice. He had to do something right away. So he reached over and banged on the inside of the bathroom door. It was the wrong move. His mom was up those front stairs and

It wasn't that she couldn't do the work. She just didn't like doing it.

I am constantly telling my own story to myself, and these days that's about all the narrative flow I can handle.

be nicer to you than she is to some other kid, then that's not your fault. That's the teacher's fault. Because a teacher's not supposed to be nicer to one kid than she is to another, right?

There's a strength in the way she carries herself, but she never seems to relax, never lets down her guard.

big blue plastic bin.

joystick for Christmas when I was four

I just really like computers.

I'm pretty smart, and I like being smart.

Truth is, Dad, I don't blame Judge Parker," he said quietly. "I mouthed off pretty bad in court. He could've given me sixty days in jail, or even ninety. I've got no gripe with him. It was my own fault—all of it.

In the school library there's an old Book Week poster that says 'Get Lost in a Book.' Well, we do that. We lose ourselves in books for hours and hours—books about all kinds of people and tons of different places. Then we come back, and we bring things with us. When we get lost like that, I think we find all kinds of cool stuff.

But if the messiness makes me feel like this, then it's worth it, right?

Because books do that—they make us lose some ignorance, and lose some fear. And losing fear might mean losing some anger, too.

After the war, and after he had been thanked by Congress and President George Washington himself, Captain Oakes got the idea of turning his huge warehouse into a school, a permanent contribution to the life of the town and the nation.

But only one thought came to him—This is better than the best book I've ever read!

Like the sunrise, some things just have to happen — and all you can really do is watch.

But regardless, Mr. Meinert looked forward to Wednesday night the way a parent looks forward to seeing a child take those first few steps alone — alone, but not really.