A Quote by James Patterson

Part 3 BACK TO SCHOOL (THE NORMAL KIND) — © James Patterson
Part 3 BACK TO SCHOOL (THE NORMAL KIND)
I live a very normal life. I have friends, and I've always gone to school. The part that's not normal is that I've been working since I was 9 months old, but at the same time, it's completely normal to me.
I just started as a part of the public school music program. I took lessons at the school every Friday and was a part of the school band. I was just a normal kid taking instrumental lessons at school, nothing special.
I told myself, 'All I want is a normal life'. But was that true? I wasn't so sure. Because there was a part of me that enjoyed hating school, and the drama of not going, the potential consequences whatever they were. I was intrigued by the unknown. I was even slightly thrilled that my mother was such a mess. Had I become addicted to crisis? I traced my finger along the windowsill. 'Want something normal, want something normal, want something normal', I told myself.
I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.
Whenever I wasn't working, I had my butt back in normal school.
I really like London now. But probably, in the future, when I need to bring my child to the school and take up a school, when I finish my career, I'd prefer to come back to my country. It's normal. For me, I prefer the place I was born.
I think my parents wanted me to do something very normal, have a normal person job and not be confronted by the instability of an artistic pursuit, but there wasn't really a lot they could do to stop me. I was, at one point, going to go to law school when I finished high school, but the next day I got accepted into acting school and there was no real question in my mind of what I was going to do.
I went to graduate school with zero expectation. I kind of backed into it. I wanted to go back to school because I felt gaps in my literary background. I studied mostly twentieth-century English literature in college, so I thought, 'Maybe I'll go back for my writing.'
We sense that ‘normal’ isn’t coming back, that we are being born into a new normal: a new kind of society, a new relationship to the earth, a new experience of being human.
In Hawaii, after somebody introduces themselves, the next question is, 'What high school did you go to?' From there, it's either 'Oh, OK, it's cool, I know some family,' or it's trash-talking to the max, like 'my school is better than your school.' This is how it kind of is back there.
I thought I was just a normal singer. I did a few shows at school but was always at the back. I never had the confidence to do it well.
And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.
I miss my friends in public school, but it's kind of a part of something that you have to give up. I'd rather perform than go to public school.
I had the benefit of going to a really good high school on Long Island. I went to Shoreham-Wading River High School, which kind of started as an experimental public school back in the 60s and 70s. It had a bunch of teachers there with a unique teaching philosophy.
I think some people forget sometimes I do have to go to the grocery store; I do enjoy going out to dinner. I have to get my oil changed from time to time. I do all the normal things. I cut my grass. People kind of forget that normal part, that we do a lot of the stuff that everybody else does, but we all have our talents, and mine is in football.
I did go to school - my kind of school. When I was a kid I went out ... and you meet people. You talk to them. Anybody says something that makes sense, it stays with you, rubs off on you. That kind of school.
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