Jerry Spinelli’s “Stargirl” Quotes (25 Quotes)

She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow.

A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?

She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.

Every name is real. That's the nature of names.

Stargirl began to improvise. She flung her arms to a make-believe crowd like a celebrity on parade. She waggled her fingers at the stars. She churned her fists like an egg-beater. Every action echoed down the line behind her. The three hops of the bunny became three struts of a vaudeville vamp. Then a penguin waddle. Then tippy-toed priss. Every new move brought new laughter from the line.

He was the Grand Marshall of our Everyday Parade

The desert seems to be a brown wasteland of dry, prickly scrub whose only purpose is to serve as a setting for the majestic saguaros. Then, little by little, the plants of the desert begin to identify themselves: the porcupiny yucca, the beaver tail and prickly pear and barrel cacti, buckhorn and staghorn and devil's fingers, the tall, sky-reaching tendrils of the ocotillo.

Heart and head are contrary historians.

The trouble with miracles is, they don't last long.

Her smile put the sunflower to shame.

This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.

He's so cute, I can't help myself.

To a person who expects every desert to be barren sand dunes, the Sonoran must come as a surprise. Not only are there no dunes, there's no sand. At least not the sort of sand you find at the beach. The ground does have a sandy color to it, or gray, but your feet won't sink in. It's hard, as if it's been tamped. And pebbly. And glinting with -- what else -- mica.

Home is everything you can walk to.

When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.

I grabbed her, right there outside the lunch room in the swarming mob. I didn't care if others were watching. In fact, i hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life.

Whos love do you cherrish more? Hers or theirs? when you deside that, it's all downhill from there.

I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.

You'll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.

I'm erased. I'm gone. I'm nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowlà. Andà I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I'm not outside my world anymore, and I'm not really inside it either. The thing is, there's no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.

It's really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There's a whole commotion going on inside us.

Maybe it was the angle, but her fawn's eyes, looking up at me, seemed larger than ever. I had to make an effort to keep my balance lest I fall into them.

Nothing's more fun than being carried away.

She laughed, and the desert sang.