Louis Sachar Quotations

I write in the mornings, two or three hours every day, and then at least four times a week I play in a duplicate game at a bridge club. I try to go to tournaments three, four, or five times a year.

The media tends to portray the teenage world as one where drinking and sex is taken for granted. In fact, I think most teenagers don't drink, are unsure of themselves, and feel awkward around members of the opposite sex.

I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.

I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books.

I didn't become a good writer until I learned how to rewrite. And I don't just mean fixing spelling and adding a comma. I rewrite each of my books five or six times, and each time I change huge portions of the story.

I really began to love to read while in high school, and my favorite authors were my heroes: J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm an avid bridge player. I usually go to the local bridge club three or four times a week. I've always been a game-player, and I think bridge is one of the greatest games ever invented. It's too bad that not many young people play it any more.

Every time I start a new novel, it seems like an impossible undertaking. If I tried to do too much too quickly, I would get lost and feel overwhelmed. I have to go slow, and give things a chance to take form and grow.

I jog in the morning and then write for about two hours. There are times when I'm really excited and can't wait to get back to it. But there are days when I don't know what's coming next, and I really have to force it.

I think of a book and a play, or a book and a movie, as two separate things - I don't think of it as my novel having a new life.

I don't listen to music when I write. I need silence.

When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.

I want kids to think that reading can be just as much fun and more so than TV or video games or whatever else they do. I think any other kind of message or morals that I might teach is secondary to first just enjoying a book.

It's - I write the books and let the market find who reads it. I guess a young adult is anywhere from ten to fifteen.

I think what makes good children's books is putting the same care and effort into it as if I was writing for adults. I don't write anything - put anything in my books - that I'd be embarrassed to put in an adult book.

Not counting 'Small Steps,' I think 'Holes' is my best book, in terms of plot, and setting, and the way the story revealed itself. It hasn't changed my life, other than that I have more money than I did before I wrote it. I'm still too close to 'Small Steps' to compare it to 'Holes.'

'The Cardturner,' while it has bridge in it, you certainly don't need to know how to play bridge to read it. It's basically a book about relationships - between Alton and his great-uncle, and Alton and his friends, and how it changes his life.

When I wrote 'Sideways Stories from Wayside School' I never expected it to be published. It was kind of a hobby. Now, it's a job, but it's a job I like very much.

With 'Holes' I was troubled that there weren't very many female characters. I tried to put them in where I could. But the setting didn't lend itself to girls.

Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.

I don't think too much about the audience when I'm writing... I'm aware that 'Holes' was read by kids as young as 8, up to adults.

I guess what led to me writing 'Holes' was having moved to Texas in 1991, and it was sort of my reaction to Texas.

I actually started an adult book, worked on it for about two years, and then decided it just wasn't coming together for me, and thought I'll go back to children's books, and almost immediately I started 'Holes,' and it just seemed to take off on me.

I'm no good at describing my books. 'Holes' has been out now for seven years, and I still can't come up with a good answer when asked what that book is about.

My parents played bridge, and I remember being fascinated watching them. I sometimes got a chance to sit in on a hand, which I loved. But then I didn't actually play on my own for about 30 years.

(My wife and I) were both still in bed, ... They called at seven o'clock, and we were very excited. I have a daughter -- she's 12. I woke her up and told her the news. She said, 'Can I tell people?' I said, 'Sure.'

It's increased sales of my book probably at least three-fold, maybe more,

I tend to freeze up on camera, so I'm kinda nervous about going on the 'Today' show, ... My feeling is, even if I freeze up, it's better if I haven't been on at all.

It's funny how you can go from hating a girl to maybe liking her, maybe liking her a lot, just because she shows a little interest in you.

A lot of people don't believe in curses. A lot of people don't believe in yellow-spotted lizards either, but if one bites you, it doesn't make a difference whether you believe in it or not.

You're responsible for yourself. You messed up your life, and it's up to you to fix it. No one else is going to do it for you -- for any of you.

I'm not stupid. I know everybody thinks I am. I just don't like answering their questions.

He could hardly lift his spoon during breakfast, and then he was out on the lake, his spoon soon replaced by a shovel.

You have only one life, make the most of it

Each beat told him he was still alive, at least for one more second.

Toni hears voices," said Trapp. "But who is this Dr. Ellsworth to tell her she's a schizophrenic? Maybe she just perceives better than the rest of us. Maybe the voices she hears are just uncommunicated ideas, floating free.

There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.

Zero wasnt worried, " When you spend your whole life living in a shole", he said, "the only way you can go is up.

In a way, it made him sad. He couldn't help but think that a hundred times zero was still nothing.

When I turned the corner, I saw Toni waving at me from the elevator. I think I've already told you how it made me feel to see her smile and wave at me. You can have your sunsets and waterfalls. If a piano were to suddenly fall on my head, that's the image I'd want forever engraved in my mind. —Alton Richard

We may be surrounded by some greater reality, to which we are oblivious. And even if we could somehow perceive it in some entirely new way, it is extremely doubtful we would be able to comprehend what we perceived.

The time you quit learning is the time to quit playing.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

Life will deal me many different hands, some good, some bad (maybe they've already been dealt), but from here on in, I'll be turning my own cards. —Alton Richard

The impossible is more believable than the highly improbable.

School just speeds things up... Without school it might take 70 years before you wake up and are able to count.

Not everyone is as nice as us.

It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather!

The bark on the tree was just a little softer.

Rattlesnakes would be a lot more dangerous if they didn't have the rattle.

Life is like crossing a river. If you take a huge step-aim for too bigger dreams-then the current will knock you off your feet and carry you away. The way to do it is small steps, you will take hold of life. You will get there in the end.

You can't let anybody else tell you what your choices are. Sometimes they won't give you the right choice.

Give me a dollar or I'll spit on you.

If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs, "The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies." While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, Crying to the moo-oo-oon, "If only, If only.

The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don't have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result.

But I'm taking small steps 'Cause I don't know where I'm going I'm taking small steps And I don't know what to say. Small steps, Trying to pull myself together And maybe I'll discover A clue along the way!

If only, if only, the moon speaks no reply; Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by. Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly. Fly high, my baby bird, My angel, my only

I hope I remember everything," said Toni. "You won't," said Trapp. "That's how you learn. But after you make the same mistake one, or two, or five times, you'll eventually get it. And then you'll make new mistakes.

You make the decision: Whom did God punish?

I may have ruined my life, but at least I got to eat some really good Chinese food.

Wayside school is falling down, falling down, falling down, Wayside school is falling down my fair lady. Kids go splat as they hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground, Kids go splat as the hit the ground my fair lady . Broken bones and blood and gore, blood and gore, blood and gore, Broken bones and blood and gore my fair lady. We don't have to go to school no more, school no more, school no more, We don't have to go to school no more my fair lady.

When anything bad happens to me or someone I know, I always know who to blame. My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

Doesn't every kid want to dig a hold to China? Didn't you? What about Chinese children?

Warning: Do not read this story right after eating. In fact, don't read it right before eating either. In fact, just to be safe, don't read this story if you're ever planning to eat again.

Whenever you give someone a present or sing a holiday song, you're helping Santa Claus. To me, that's what Christmas is all about. Helping Santa Claus!

Well, let me tell you something, Caveman. You are here on account of one person. If it wasn't for that person, you wouldn't be here digging holes in the hot sun. You know who that person is?" "My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy.

Okay, you were probably taught there are five senses," he said. "We see, hear, touch, smell and taste. But how do we know those are the only five? What are the senses that we don't have? What are we failing to perceive?

What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.

An idea doesn't die," said Trapp. "It exists somewhere, in its own dimension, waiting to be perceived.

I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it.After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it.

But don't forget who you really are. And I'm not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. When you're alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you...Your muscles will toughen. So will your heart and soul. That's necessary for survival. But don't lose touch with that person deep inside you, or else you won't really have survived at all.

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.

The greatest award is doing something you're proud of.