Gary D. Schmidt: Maybe this happens to you every day, but I think it w...

Think of the sound you make when you let go after holding your breath for a very, very long time. Think of the gladdest sound you know: the sound of dawn on the first day of spring break, the sound of a bottle of Coke opening, the sound of a crowd cheering in your ears because you're coming down to the last part of a race--and you're ahead. Think of the sound of water over stones in a cold stream, and the sound of wind through green trees on a late May afternoon in Central Park. Think of the sound of a bus coming into the station carrying someone you love. Then put all those together.

Gary D. Schmidt

cheer letting-go spring

Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?

Gary D. Schmidt

shut-up poet want

You know, when someone has been crying, something gets left in the air. It's not something you can see or smell, or feel. Or draw. But it's there.

Gary D. Schmidt

smell cry air

I saw my town as if I had just arrived. It was as if I was waking up. You see houses and buildings every day, and you walk by them on your way to something else, and you hardly see. You hardly notice they're even there, mostly because there's something else going on right in front of your face, But when the town itself becomes the thing that is going on right in front of your face, it all changes, and you're not just looking at a house, but at what's happened in that house before you were born.

Gary D. Schmidt

wake-up house way

When 1:45 came, half the class left, and Danny Hupfer whispered, "If she gives you a cream puff after we leave, I'm going to kill you" - which was not something that someone headed off to prepare for his bar mitzvah should be thinking. When 1:55 came and the other half of the class left, Meryl Lee whispered, "If she gives you one after we leave, I'm going to do Number 408 to you." I didn't remember what Number 408 was, but it was probably pretty close to what Danny Hupfer had promised. Even Mai Thi looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "I know your home." Which sounded pretty ominous.

Gary D. Schmidt

eye home thinking

(The raindrops) played across the coast all through the night, until the soft new day shrugged itself awake, tried on amethyst and lavender for a while, and finally decided on pale yellow.

Gary D. Schmidt

pale-yellow night new-day

Whatever it means to be a friend, taking a black eye for someone has to be in it.

Gary D. Schmidt

black eye mean

I love the sound of a brand-new bottle of coke when you pry the lid off and it starts to fizz. Whenever I hear that sound, I think of roses, and of sitting together with someone you care about and of Romeo and Juliet waking up somewhere and saying to each other, weren't we jerks? And then having all that be over. That's what I think of when I hear the sound of a brand-new bottle of Coke being opened

Gary D. Schmidt

together rose thinking

Did you find yourself?" "What?" said my sister. "Did you find yourself?" "She found me," I said.

Gary D. Schmidt

finding-yourself my-sister found

In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.

Gary D. Schmidt

special stories world

You know how that feels?

Gary D. Schmidt

know-how knows feels

There is no Art made without power, and there is no reason for Art to be made except for power.

Gary D. Schmidt

power reason art

Do you ever wonder what it's like to be so angry that you...And then something happens, and after that, everyone figures that's what you're like, and that's what you're always going to be, and so you just decide to be it? But the whole time you're thinking, Am I going to be like him? Or am I already like him? And then you get angrier, because maybe you are, and you want... He stopped. He wiped at his eyes. I'm not lying. My brother wiped at his eyes.

Gary D. Schmidt

eye brother lying

Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches.

Gary D. Schmidt

fire book art

No matter what happens, there is always the business of the world to attend to.

Gary D. Schmidt

no-matter-what matter world

You know, there are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say? Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?

Gary D. Schmidt

differences two mean

Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.

Gary D. Schmidt

walks reader quiet

Sometimes--and I know it doesn't last for anything more than a second--sometimes there can be perfect understanding between two people who can't stand each other. He smiled, and I smiled, and we put the Timex watches on, and we watched the seconds flit by.

Gary D. Schmidt

perfect two people

And it really doesn't matter if we're under our desks with our hands over our heads or not, does it? No, said Mrs. Baker. It doesn't really matter. So, why are we practicing? She thought for a minute. Because it gives comfort, she said. People like to think that if they're prepared then nothing bad can really happen. And perhaps we practice because we feel as if there's nothing else we can do because sometimes it feels as if life is governed by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Gary D. Schmidt

practice hands thinking

I handed the test in five minutes before the end of the day. Mrs. Baker took it calmly, then reached into her bottom drawer for an enormous red pen with a wide felt tip. "Stand here and we'll see how you've done," she said, which is sort of like a dentist handing you a mirror and saying, "Sit here and watch while I drill a hole in your tooth.

Gary D. Schmidt

bakers the-end-of-the-day mirrors

Maybe this happens to you every day, but I think it was the first time I could hardly wait to show something that I'd done to someone who would care besides my mother. You know how that feels?