Nothing exists without its opposite.
If you were to look at each atom as a universe unto itself, think of the number of universes within each of us.
It’s a scary thing; moving on. Part of me wishes life were more predictable and part of me is excited that it’s not. I think it’s impossible to tell the good things from the bad things while they’re happening.
You put yourself out there in the truest way you can and hope others do the same. You’ll connect or you won’t, but you did what you could.
You can’t judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.
Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.
It seems to me if you don’t know anything about child development you shouldn’t intimate in your ‘reporting’ that you do.
You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.
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.
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a part of the voice I need.
A sport has its own built-in integrity, doesn’t need an artificial one. Athletics carries its own set of truths, and those truths are diminished and manipulated by people with agendas.
I believe there was a big bang and that because of that we are all connected into infinity, and I know very little having to do with human beings that doesn’t also have to do with connection.
I have made a career of creating characters who fight school authority and chomp at the bit to get out into the ‘real’ world and live their lives, mostly because that’s the kind of teenager I was.
There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.
The premise of ‘Deadline’ forced me to go against my own grain with a character determined to find all that is valuable in that time. I believe this is a story about redemption; how, even with the best intentions, it’s sometimes found and sometimes not.
I can’t think of a subject that is taboo for me, unless it’s one I simply don’t know anything about.
There’s only one thing to say to the censors: Shut up.
But the truth doesn’t need to be known, or believed, to be true.
If you think your life sucks, it probably does. Do something about it.
I’d rather be a flash than a slowly burning ember.