Top 150 Louis Sachar Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Tired,” said Jason. “S-L-E-E-P-Y. Tired.”

— Louis Sachar

102. “Part of me becomes the characters I’m writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.”

— Louis Sachar

103. “The reader is probably asking: Why would anyone go to Camp Green Lake? Most campers weren’t given a choice. Camp Green Lake is a camp for bad boys. If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy. That was what some people thought. Stanley Yelnats was given a choice. The judge said, “You may go to jail, or you may go to Camp Green Lake.” Stanley was from a poor family. He had never been to camp before.”

— Louis Sachar

104. “You’re not completely worthless.”

— Louis Sachar

105. “Stanley was still digging.”

— Louis Sachar

106. “She looked around. There was a bulletin board covered with A papers. She looked from one paper to another and hoped, with all her heart, that she’d see one with Bradley’s name on it. She didn’t.”

— Louis Sachar

107. “He gave it all to charity,” said my father. “Diabetes research, I can understand that. But cancer research? He didn’t even have cancer!”

— Louis Sachar

108. “She was on the outside here too, just like at school. Even in the circular room, with all the fish swimming around her, she was on the outside. She was in the middle, but on the outside.”

— Louis Sachar

109. “I guess what led to me writing ‘Holes’ was having moved to Texas in 1991, and it was sort of my reaction to Texas.”

— Louis Sachar

110. “No one ever says ‘No’ to Charles Walker!”

— Louis Sachar

111. “Now come to the front of the line where you belong.”

— Louis Sachar

112. “I write in the mornings, two or three hours every day, and then at least four times a week I play in a duplicate game at a bridge club. I try to go to tournaments three, four, or five times a year.”

— Louis Sachar

113. “The next time I get a cat, I’ll kill him. Then he’ll never run away,” said Kathy.”

— Louis Sachar

114. “Dana raised her hand. “I learned about exaggeration,” she said. “It was all my teacher ever talked about. We had like ten thousand tests on it, and the teacher would kill you if you didn’t spell it right.” “That’s very good, Dana!” said Mrs. Jewls. “You learned your lesson well.”

— Louis Sachar

115. “He’s not my dad,” Kaira said. “Just because he married my – As soon as I turn eighteen I’m firing his ass! Then I’ll call you.”

— Louis Sachar

116. “An idea doesn’t die,” said Trapp. “It exists somewhere, in its own dimension, waiting to be perceived.”

— Louis Sachar

117. “I’m Felix,” said the skinny guy. “This is my man Moses.”

— Louis Sachar

118. “That’s not weird,” said Jenny. “That’s normal. Try reading a story backward. That’s weird. I’m the weird one in this class.” “That’s a laugh!” said Rondi. “If you’re so weird, then how come you never asked Louis to kick you in the teeth? I’m the one who’s crazy!” “No, that’s not crazy,” said Todd. “I’ll tell.”

— Louis Sachar

119. “The guy can’t chew his own food,” said the first boy. “So his dogs have to chew it up for him. Then they spit it out, and then he eats it.”

— Louis Sachar

120. “In a few years, Camp Greenlake will be a girl scout camp.”

— Louis Sachar

121. “Well, not exactly. I got a C-minus on the paper I wrote about my idea for the ergie. So then.”

— Louis Sachar

122. “He didn’t want her to know that he didn’t understand, but what he didn’t realize was that she didn’t understand either, so that if he had just told her he didn’t understand, she would have understood, but when he told her he understood, then she didn’t understand.”

— Louis Sachar

123. “Yes,” Leslie agreed. “Rondi showed excellent taste by not wearing the hat or the boots. They go so well together.”

— Louis Sachar

124. “Sadly, in these rush-rush, hurry-hurry days, not too many young people study the art of paper clip bending. There are only a handful of master benders left in the whole world. And who knows, in ten or twenty years there might not be any. Everyone will have to switch to staples.”

— Louis Sachar

125. “They had never had a nice teacher. They were terribly afraid of nice teachers.”

— Louis Sachar

126. “One was a fast-talking, skinny white guy. With him was a big dude wearing a cowboy hat and boots.”

— Louis Sachar

127. “That’s the Little Dipper. Hey, Armpit, what sign are you?” “This is my sign,” Armpit said, and gave him the finger.”

— Louis Sachar

128. “Some hunters like to shoot ostriches that have their heads buried in the sand.”

— Louis Sachar

129. “Passed away” seemed like an appropriate way of putting it. Over the next few days, I had this recurring image of Trapp sitting at the bridge table. He reaches into the bidding box, removes a pass card, and places it on the table. Then he slowly vanishes.”

— Louis Sachar

130. “I’m not exactly the luckiest guy in the world.”

— Louis Sachar

131. “My mama wore pajamas to the grocery store. She smashed a bunch of eggs on the grocery floor. One dozen, two dozen, four dozen, six. She dumped a bunch of jelly jars into the mix. Grape jelly, apricot, don’t forget cherry. Orange marmalade and wild strawberry. A man walked by and fell in the glop. He slid next door to the barber shop. His icky-sticky body got covered in hair. He tore a hole in his under –.”

— Louis Sachar

132. “Mushroom Surprise.”

— Louis Sachar

133. “All too soon Stanley was back out on the lake, sticking his shovel into the dirt. X-Ray was right: the third hole was the hardest.”

— Louis Sachar

134. “This was the eighteenth day in a row that the special was Mushroom Surprise. It was called Mushroom Surprise because it would have been a surprise if anybody had ever ordered it. No one ever did – except Louis, of course. That’s why they’d had it for eighteen days. There was always plenty left over.”

— Louis Sachar

135. “They walked for what seemed like a very long time, and still never came across the Mary Lou. Stanley was pretty sure they were heading in the right direction. He remembered that when they left the boat, they were headed toward the setting sun. Now they were headed toward the rising sun. He knew the sun didn’t rise and set exactly in the.”

— Louis Sachar

136. “Allison,” said Mrs. Jewls. “You learned a very important secret today, and I don’t want you to tell any of the other children, not even Rondi.” “What was that?” asked Allison. She didn’t even know she had learned a secret. She loved secrets. “You learned that children are really smarter than their teachers,” said Mrs. Jewls. “Oh, that’s no secret,” said Allison. “Everybody knows that.”

— Louis Sachar

137. “Wait a second. I don’t have to tell you. You already know. Todd was sent to your school.”

— Louis Sachar

138. “But then a miracle happened. A new kid came to school. The new kid couldn’t talk. She had no teeth. She was almost bald. She was beautiful. Her name was Mavis Jewls. She was only four days old. She really was a new kid.”

— Louis Sachar

139. “It was a box of tissues.”

— Louis Sachar

140. “So, you just told him all his cards?” East asked when we returned. “And he’s going to remember them?” asked West. “You can ask me,” my uncle said. “Despite my lack of eyesight, I can hear and speak.”

— Louis Sachar

141. “So remember,” said Mr. Kidswatter. “And please be careful! Always check to see if a door is open before going through it. And if it’s not open, open it.”

— Louis Sachar

142. “She was glad she really loved stories. Suddenly she made a face. “Oh, yuck!” she said. “What is it?” asked Mrs. Jewls. “What if I really love John, too?”

— Louis Sachar

143. “In fact, they were much too cute to be children.”

— Louis Sachar

144. “Mr. Sir stared at her. He had three long red marks slanting across the left side of his face. Stanley didn’t know if the redness was caused by her nail polish or his blood. It took a moment for the venom to sink in. Suddenly, Mr. Sir screamed and clutched his face with both hands. He let himself fall over, rolling off the hearth and onto the rug.”

— Louis Sachar

145. “With your help I can scratch both legs at the same time.” “No, never mind,” said Leslie. She walked up behind Louis, the yard teacher, and hopped on his shoulders. “Louis,” said Leslie. “I don’t know what to do with my toes.” Louis tugged her foot. “Yes, that is a serious problem,” he said, “but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take them off your hands for you, or rather, your feet. Just cut them off and.”

— Louis Sachar

146. “Stanley was not a bad kid. He was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather! He smiled. It was a family joke. Whenever anything went wrong, they always blamed Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.”

— Louis Sachar

147. “If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole.”

— Louis Sachar

148. “It is impossible to describe, in words, exactly what Miss Nogard heard when she listened to Mavis’s brain. Babies don’t think in words. Miss Nogard heard pure love. And trust. And faith. With no words to get in the way. It was a love so strong that it dissolved away all the bitterness that had been caked around her heart.”

— Louis Sachar

149. “Twenty-five Percent Slam.”

— Louis Sachar

150. “Never laugh at a shoelace!”

— Louis Sachar