R. J. Palacio Quotes

“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength.”

“But I really believe, and Daddy really believes, that there are more good people on this earth than bad people, and the good people watch out for each other and take care of each other.”

“It’s never too late to start over.”

“The best way to measure how much you’ve grown isn’t by inches or the number of laps you can now run around the track, or even your grade point average — though those things are important, to be sure. It’s what you’ve done with your time, how you’ve chosen to spend your days, and whom you’ve touched this year. That, to me, is the greatest measure of success.”

“I wish every day could be Halloween. We could all wear masks all the time. Then we could walk around and get to know each other before we got to see what we looked like under the masks.”

“Kinder than is necessary. Because it’s not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed. Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness.”

“A fresh start gives us the chance to reflect on the past, weigh the things we’ve done, and apply what we’ve learned from those things to the future. If we don’t examine the past, we don’t learn from it.”

“Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.”

“Some things you just can’t explain. You don’t even try. You don’t know where to start. All your sentences would jumble up like a giant knot if you opened your mouth. Any words you used would come out wrong.”

“Its not a contest about whose days suck the most. The point is we all have to put up with the bad days.”

“It’s not enough to be friendly. You have to be a friend.”

“Learning who you are is what you are here to do.”

“Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.”

“You don’t need your eyes to love, right? You just feel it inside you. That’s how it is in heaven. It’s just love, and no one forgets who they love.”

“Funny how sometimes you worry a lot about something and it turns out to be nothing.”

“I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”

“It’s not all random, if it really was all random, the universe would abandon us completely. And the universe doesn’t. It takes care of its most fragile creations in ways we can’t see...Maybe it is a lottery, but the universe makes it all even out in the end. The universe takes care of all its birds.”

“The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died. They’re like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they’re made out of the memories people have of you.”

“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.”

“What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.”

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.”

“It’s better to know some of the questions, than all of the answers.”

“Don’t try too hard to be cool. It always shows, and that’s uncool.”

“When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.”

“Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams.”