Chris Crutcher

“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.”

“I was pretty anti-academic, and I wasn't much of a student. I had a really short attention span and did not get a lot out of high school academically. I think college was a little the same way.”

“A sport has its own built-in integrity - doesn't need an artificial one.”

“...You don't always get what you expect. I wish someone, sometime when I was growing up, would have told me what expectations would get me. ... Our parents, schools, everyone tells us things will be a certain way when we're adults and if they're not that way, we should make them be; or at least pretend. But after a certain point that just doesn't work.”

“I have no personal agenda in whether or not a library keeps 'Whale Talk' or 'Athletic Shorts' or any of my books shelved.”

“In 2004, one of my books, 'Whale Talk,' was chosen as an all-school read in Fowlerville, Michigan, a rural town not far from Detroit. They had done what I thought was a brilliant and innovative thing: decided to teach the book in every discipline, sophomores through seniors.”

“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.”

“It's hard to imagine my life not writing. I love it.”

“So you didn’t tell me it was a messed-up idea to keep this all a secret because. . .” Because experience is the only teacher,” Hey-Soos says. “Even if I could have told you, it would have been a lecture. Why do you think kids don’t listen to their parents, or people don’t leave churches and do what the preacher tells them? There’s only one thing that’s universal.” What’s that?” The truth.”

“Being an outsider means not being heard, not having a voice. It means being treated as a second-class citizen, being diminished in the eyes of others. We have all felt this way at one time or another, but some feel it more consistently. Unfortunately, our schools often do not embrace the talents of many of their occupants.”

“Talking with Elaine like that, with no judgment from her or anything, seemed to bring my feelings more to the surface so I could look at them. I love times like that; you don't get many of them.(Walker, in STOTAN!)”

“As much as we'd like to think life is sacred, there's not a lot of evidence for that. The universe is maddeningly casual, giving and taking it.”

“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.”

“You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.”

“Something about the joy and pain of that moment, something about the excruciating contrast, made me feel that no matter what happens now, my life has been worth it. What a ride.”

“Censors can make a case for zero tolerance in language. They can make the argument that since we don't allow our children to use that language in schools, we also shouldn't give them stories in which it is used.”

“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.”

“My early life had a lot to do with my origins as a writer, but I didn't get into doing any writing at all until I was about 35 years old.”

“My first book, 'Running Loose', was censored back in 1983 or '84. Every book I've written since has been censored somewhere.”

“Comedy is tragedy standing on its head with its pants down.”