Okay for Now Quotes

“Mr. Powell raised an eyebrow. 'I'm a librarian,' he said. 'I always know what I'm talking about.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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, Okay for Now

“She came over and looked at the picture. Then she took my hand.
You know what that feels like?
Like what the astronauts will feel when they step onto the moon for the very first time.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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, Okay for Now

“It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not like I was reading books or anything.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Mrs. Daugherty was keeping my bowl of cream of wheat hot, and she had a special treat with it, she said. It was bananas.

In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“On Saturday mornings during deliveries, I'd practice picking out new words in Jane Eyre, sounding out the ones that needed sounding out—and I'm not lying, there were plenty. "'A new servitude! There is something in that,' I soliloquized." I mean, who talks like that? Do you know how long it takes to sound out a word like soliloquized? And even after you do, you have no idea what the stupid word means except that it probably just means "said," which is what stupid Charlotte Brontë should have said in the first place. When I delivered Mrs. Mason's groceries, she saw that I had Jane Eyre stuck under my arm. "Oh," she said, "that was my favorite novel in school." "It was?" I soliloquized.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“There's no pleasure in getting to be an old coot unless you have some fun along the way.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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?”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“We were both chumps. But you know what? It's not so bad when you're chumps together.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“So you just went in and told him to give you two Cokes and he gave them to you?" "No, I didn't just go in and tell him to give me two Cokes. I asked for a Coke for me and a Coke for the skinny thug sitting on the library steps.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Maybe the Snowy Heron is going to come off pretty badly when the planes come together. Maybe. But he's still proud and beautiful. His head is high, and he's got this sharp beak that's facing out to the world.

He's okay for now.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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, Okay for Now

“How come when you're feeling good like this, something always happens to wreck it all? How come?”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“When you find something that's whole, you do what you can to keep it that way.

And when you fins something that isn't, then maybe it's not a bad idea to try to make it whole again. Maybe.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“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, Okay for Now

“In English, we were still on the Introduction to Poetry Unit, and I'm not lying, if I ever meet Percy Bysshe Shelley walking down the streets of Marysville, I'm going to punch him right in the face.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“You know how that feels?”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“By the way, in case you weren't paying attention or something, did you catch what Mr. Powell called me? "Young artist." I bet you missed that.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“No one ever comes back from Vietnam. Not really.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“I'm not lying.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Here’s how you practice shrieking like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years:
You stand in the middle of the field.
You look around to be sure that no one is going to hear you.
You breathe in a couple of times to get as much air in your chest as you can.
You stretch your neck up like the Great Esquimaux Curlew.
You imagine that it’s Game Seven of the World Series and it’s the bottom of the ninth and Joe Pepitone is rounding third base and the throw is coming in and the catcher has his glove up waiting for the ball and Joe Pepitone is probably going to be out and the game will be over and the Yankees will lose.
Then you let out your shriek, because that’s how everyone in Yankee Stadium would be shrieking right then.
That’s how you practice shrieking like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years. And you keep doing it over and over again until all the birds in Marysville have flown away.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Terrific.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“It was a Saturday that you somehow knew was going to be one of the last beautiful days of fall. The sun was shining hot, like it thought it was still July, and November drizzles were a whole season away. The sky was blue and a few white clouds were easing themselves along like they didn't care. The grass was warm and sweet, like April, but the trees hadn't forgotten it was October. They were all on fire, and behind their leaves, the birds were singing their last songs.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Doug Swieteck,' Mr. Ferris said, 'do you know the basic principle of physical science?'

A trick?

'No,' I said, sort of slow.

'The basic principle of physical science is this: no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. Do you understand that?'

'I think so,' I said.

'Do you understand what the principle means?'

I shook my head.

'It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“Mrs. Russell made us both sit down with a glass of milk. "And I have a special treat for you," she said. I'm not lying. She really said that. I held my breath because of the last special treat at the Daughertys', but it didn't help, because when Mrs. Russell came back, she came back with a loaf of banana bread. Banana bread! And James said, "How about we have some jam with that?" and Mrs. Russell said, "Jam? Then you wouldn't be able to taste the bananas," and James said, "Ma, I hate bananas," and she said, "But I'm sure that Doug enjoys them," and I said, "I think I'm still full from lunch, so the milk's fine," and then Mrs. Russell picked up the plate with the banana bread on it, and you might not believe this, but she started to laugh and laugh a d laugh, until Mr. Russell came out to the kitchen to see what was so funny and she showed him the banana bread and he said, "I hate bananas," and we all started to laugh until Mrs. Russell said, "I hate bananas too," and you can imagine us all laughing until we were crying and finally Mrs. Russell took the banana bread outside to break it up for the birds-"Let's hope they like bananas"-and then I showed Mr. Russell Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition, and he stopped laughing.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

“I'm a librarian," he said. "I always know what I'm talking about.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now