A Quote by Virginia C. Andrews

It's funny how when you're little, you miss all the little lies. They float right past you, but you don't wonder about them much. For a long time, you think this is just something adults still do after being kids - pretend.
I still think there is a way to take all the mistakes that we've made as adults and put a little bit of a salve on them, a little bit of a fix on them, if we just are a little smarter in what we teach our kids.
I don't think anyone's a failure as long as they're still innocent. Just a little. They may lose everything good in them but as long as they believe just a little in something very small, they're still innocent. To fail is to lose every bit of innocence.
Solitary people, these book lovers. I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry about when you don't see them for a long time, you don't have to wonder what they do, how they're getting along with themselves. You just know that they're all right, and probably doing something they like.
You don't need Little League. You don't even need nine kids. Four is plenty-a pitcher, a batter, and a couple of shaggers. You can play ball all day long. My kids used to try to get me out there, but I'd just say, "Go play with your brothers." If kids want to do something, they'll do it. They don't need adults to do it for them.
Let me tell you something. I'm a funny girl, and I gave birth to what? Funny. I can't help it. It just is what it is, and my kids have been around my antics so long, it kind of rubs off a little bit. So when it comes to what you see, you only see what is really manifesting in our lives at the time.
The fun part, I will admit this much, there is a period when listening to my music is fun, and that's when I'm making it. There's a tiny little window before something gets old, but after it's come to fruition. There's a little window there where I can listen to a song probably about five times, and I'll really think it's awesome. That's kind of the period that lets me know when I - 99 percent of the time, that period is right about whether a song is going to be a keeper for an album or just a throwaway track that never gets - in that little window.
To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it. Every day, parents and teachers ask me, 'How do I build grit in kids? What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?' The honest answer is, I don't know.
The one thing about kids is that you never really know exactly what they're thinking or how they're seeing. After writing about kids, which is a little bit like putting the experience under a magnifying glass, you realize you have no idea how you thought as a kid. I've come to the conclusion that most of the things that we remember about our childhood are lies. We all have memories that stand out from when we were kids, but they're really just snapshots. You can't remember how you reacted because your whole head is different when you stand aside.
I have a lot of women friends - I feel like I finally matured a little. But initially I was attracted to some of them. I liked everything they were about. I think men are just taught: "Okay, well then, I should try to have sex with them." I'm just lucky that it went in the friendship direction, and it became a much stronger bond that's lasted a long time. You wonder how many potentially great friends you lose along the way because you become lovers and it is so painful when it's over and you can't turn it into a positive friendship.
I didn't like what was on TV in terms of sitcoms?it had nothing to do with the color of them?I just didn't like any of them. I saw little kids, let's say 6 or 7 years old, white kids, black kids. And the way they were addressing the father or the mother, the writers had turned things around, so the little children were smarter than the parent or the caregiver. They were just not funny to me. I felt that it was manipulative and the audience was looking at something that had no responsibility to the family.
Because of what I experienced when I was a kid, I want kids to have that kind of an epiphany moment, that little jolt, that little spark that they see when Dusty ['Planes'] flies higher than he has before. That scene where he flies straight up, and he's starting to get dizzy, and then finally it comes together. We forget as adults. We get jaded and we think that's kids' stuff, but for a kid who doesn't know about anything technical or how a movie is made, they're just going to see this and hear this beautiful score and see this dynamic, fantastical thing happening in front of them.
When I design and wonder what the point is, I think of someone having a bad time in their life. Maybe they are sad and they wake up and put on something I have made and it makes them feel just a bit better. So, in that sense, fashion is a little help in the life of a person. But only a little.
I wonder if it's ever really possible to know the truth about someone else, or if the best we can do is just stumble into each other, heads down, hoping to avoid collision. I...wonder how many people are clutching secrets like little fists, little rocks sitting in the pits of their stomachs. All of them, maybe.
I'm a better musician now, and I rarely practice because age has taught me the value of economy. And I think I'm a better writer now because I don't waste as much time, dilly-dallying and sassafrassin' and sloop and sloppin' and frying eggs. When you start writing, half the time you're just saying howdy to the page. My process now is a little more lean and muscular. I don't waste a lot of time. When I had kids, I learned how much time I had before, and how much time you actually need to do something. If you don't have time, you'll just do it and get it done.
I never know what to tell them. I mean, there's nothing you can say to make a person stop hurting. Half the time, I just feel like telling them the truth. I'd say that for 3 months, you're going to feel worse than you've ever felt and you cope as best you can. And that after 6 months, the pain isn't so bad, but it still hurts more than you think it will. And even after years, you still find yourself thinking about the person you lost and get sad about it. And you still miss them all the time.
I never think of my work as writing for a young audience, frankly, because I think it risks talking 'down' to them. The idea is for these books to work just as well as for adults as kids. As for what readers will take away, I just want them to love being in the world and see it as a safe place to explore things that adults are often uncomfortable talking to them about.
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