Gary Paulsen > Quotes

“If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can’t be in books.
The book needs you.”
― Gary Paulsen, The Winter Room

“I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

“I read like a wolf eats.
I read myself to sleep every night.”
― Gary Paulsen

“Why do I read?
I just can't help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh
and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never
been exposed to.
I read when I'm crabby, when I've just
said monumentally dumb things to the
people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I
feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I'm angry at the whole
world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
I read because I'm made up not just of
skin and bones, of sights, feelings,
and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm
also made up of words.
Words describe my thoughts and what's
hidden in my heart.
Words are alive--when I've found a
story that I love, I read it again and
again, like playing a favorite song
over and over.
Reading isn't passive--I enter the
story with the characters, breathe
their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a
friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

“Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“I tried to contain myself... but I escaped!”
― Gary Paulsen

“He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that--it didn't work.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me.
The sea.”
― Gary Paulsen, Caught by the Sea

“Books make me feel safe. Books make me feel normal.”
― Paulsen, Gary

“Read like a wolf eats.”
― Gary Paulsen

“And the last thought he had that morning as he closed his eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“She was brilliant and joyous and she believed- probably correctly- that libraries contain the answers to all things, to everything, and that if you can't find the information you seek in the library, then such information probably doesn't exist in this or any parallel universe now or ever to be known. She was thoughtful and kind and she always believed the best of everybody. She was, above all else, a master librarian and she knew where to find any book on any subject in the shortest possible time.

And she was wonderfully unhinged.”
― Gary Paulsen, Mudshark

“That's all it took to solve problems - just sense.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“...this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath...”
― Gary Paulsen, Caught by the Sea

“When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream. They had taken it all away from him now, they had turned away from him and there was nothing for him now...He was alone and there was nothing for him.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him. And he had to keep hoping.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“Things seemed to go back and forth between reality and imagination--except that it was all reality.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“All the luck in the world has to come every year, in every part of every year, or there is not a harvest and then the luck, the bad luck will come and everything we are, all that we can ever be, all the Einsteins and babies and love and hate, all the joy and sadness and sex and wanting and liking and disliking, all the soft summer breezes on cheeks and first snowflakes, all the Van Goghs and Rembrandts and Mozarts and Mahlers and Thomas Jeffersons and Lincolns and Ghandis and Jesus Christs, all the Cleopatras and lovemaking and riches and achievements and progress, all of that, every single damn thing that we are or ever will be is dependent on six inches of topsoil and the fact that the rain comes when it's needed and does not come when it is not needed; everything, every...single...thing comes with that luck.”
― Gary Paulsen, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass

“Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over.

Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them.

Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

“the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“She was beautiful in a way that only wild things can be beautiful.”
― Gary Paulsen, Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod

“The person who reads can bail, but the person who doesn't fails.”
― Gary Paulsen

“Not hope that he would be rescued--that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of tough hope.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“Do what you can as you can. Trouble, problems, will come no matter what you do , and you must respond as they come.”
― Gary Paulsen, Brian's Winter

“It was a strange feeling, holding the rifle. It somehow removed him from everything around him. Without the rifle he had to fit in, to be part of it all, to understand it and use it - the woods, all of it. With the rifle, suddenly, he didn't have to know, did not have to be afraid or understand. He didn't have to get close to a foolbird to kill it - didn't have to know how it would stand if he didn't look at it and moved off to the side.
The rifle changed him, the minute he picked it up, and he wasn't sure he liked the change much.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“Initially, he worried that he might be going crazy. But then he decided if you felt you were crazy you weren't really crazy because he had heard somewhere that crazy people didn't know they were insane.”
― Gary Paulsen, Brian's Winter

“This is going to be murder," Fransic whispered to Mr. Trimes. "Pure murder."
"I'm glad to see your confidence returning, Mr. Tucket. Just a few minutes ago you were ready to give up. Now you're talking about killing him."
"I meant it the other way."
"Oh.”
― Gary Paulsen, Mr. Tucket

“...You can take the man out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the man.”
― Gary Paulsen, Brian's Return

“Brian looked back and for a moment felt afraid because the wolf was so... so right. He knew Brian, knew him and owned him and chose not to do anything to him. But the fear moved then, moved away,and Brian knew the wolf for what it was - another part of the woods, another part of all of it.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet