Chris Crutcher quotes

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. (Chris Crutcher)

I don't think I'll ever lose the feeling that I had when I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - Harper Lee was going back into her childhood. I grew up in a real small town - Lee's was in the South, mine the Northwest - but small towns have a lot in common. There was such a revelation in knowing that a story could be told like that.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher

'Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher

Nothing exists without its opposite.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher

Beware the short terminal guy with nothing to lose.

Chris Crutcher

I am for anything that makes teens visible in an honest way... in other words, anything that represents them the way they are, positively or negatively. (Chris Crutcher)

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.

Chris Crutcher

I think the value in books like mine, and a great number by other talented writers, is in the ability to bring dark subjects into the open where they are not so dark, where they can be talked about and considered by teens and adults alike.

Chris Crutcher

I can't think of a subject that is taboo for me, unless it's one I simply don't know anything about.

Chris Crutcher

It seems to me if you don't know anything about child development you shouldn't intimate in your "reporting" that you do.

Chris Crutcher

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

Chris Crutcher

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

Chris Crutcher

If we are to stop bullying in schools, we have to start with teachers and administrators. If we want to stop it, we have to stop it.

Chris Crutcher

... racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.

Chris Crutcher

But the truth doesn't need to be known, or believed, to be true.

Chris Crutcher

... we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it. (Chris Crutcher)

If someone's different from you and it scares you or makes you mad, that's God telling you to take a closer look. If you're scared or mad, that's about you, not about the person who scares you or angers you.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher

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.

Chris Crutcher