Top 200 R. J. Palacio Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Her smile hugged me.”

— R. J. Palacio

52. “Greatness... lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength... He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.”

— R. J. Palacio

53. “Being nice is the first step toward being kind. It’s a pretty awesome start.”

— R. J. Palacio

54. “Things that happen to us, even the bad stuff, can often teach us a little bit about ourselves.”

— R. J. Palacio

55. “If I found a magic lamp and I could have one wish, I would wish that I had a normal face that no one ever noticed at all.”

— R. J. Palacio

56. “And I remember thinking my dad’s death was like that. It’s like the extinction of the dinosaurs. A meteor hits your heart and changes everything forever. But you’re still here. You go on.”

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

58. “Life is not colorful. Life is coloring” -Paco.”

— R. J. Palacio

59. “AUGUST IS THE Sun. Me and Mom and Dad are planets orbiting the Sun. The rest of our family and friends are asteroids and comets floating around the planets orbiting the Sun.”

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

61. “I eat like a tortoise eats, if you’ve ever seen a tortoise eating. Like some prehistoric swamp thing.”

— R. J. Palacio

62. “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.”

— R. J. Palacio

63. “Es curioso lo rara que puede ser la gente.”

— R. J. Palacio

64. “I wish everyday 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.”

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

66. “One mistake does not define you, Julian. Do you understand me? You must simply act better next time.”

— R. J. Palacio

67. “Flowers are great, but love is better. – Justin Bieber.”

— R. J. Palacio

68. “What’s cool about really little kids is that they don’t say stuff to try to hurt your feelings, even though sometimes they do say stuff that hurts your feelings. But they don’t actually know what they’re saying. Big kids, though: they know what they’re saying. And that is definitely not fun for me.”

— R. J. Palacio

69. “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. And what does that mean? How is that measured? You can’t use a yardstick.”

— R. J. Palacio

70. “I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.”

— R. J. Palacio

71. “Middle School is about as bad as it gets, and then it gets better.”

— R. J. Palacio

72. “What kind of person am I?”

— R. J. Palacio

73. “Halloween is the best holiday in the world. It even beats Christmas.”

— R. J. Palacio

74. “Good friendships are worth a little extra effort!”

— R. J. Palacio

75. “Clean up after yourselves. Be kind to nature and it will be kind to you. We.”

— R. J. Palacio

76. “It’s like how compass needles always point north, no matter which way you’re facing. All those eyes are compasses, and I’m like the North Pole to them.”

— R. J. Palacio

77. “I do not like to dwell on the past. Life is ahead of us. If we spend too much time looking backward, we can’t see where we are going!”

— R. J. Palacio

78. “You are my everything. You understand me, Via? Tu es meu tudo.” I understood her. And I knew why she said it was a secret. Grandmothers aren’t supposed to have favorites. Everyone knows that. But after she died, I held on to that secret and let it cover me like a blanket.”

— R. J. Palacio

79. “It’s so weird how that can be, how you could have a night that’s the worst in your life, but to everybody else it’s just an ordinary night.”

— R. J. Palacio

80. “Everyone born of God overcometh the world.”

— R. J. Palacio

81. “But guess what? He had fainted! Right on the floor! So when the farting nurse saw that he had fainted, she started pushing him with her foot to get him to wake up, yelling at him the whole time: “What kind of doctor are you? What kind of doctor are you? Get up! Get up!” And then all of a sudden she let out the biggest, loudest, smelliest fart in the history of farts. Mom thinks it was actually the fart that finally woke the doctor up.”

— R. J. Palacio

82. “Hey hey, I know!” said Dad excitedly. “Let’s fix them up on a blind date! Can you imagine? Miss Butt, meet Mr. Tushman. Mr. Tushman, here’s Miss Butt. They could get married and have a bunch of little Tushies.”

— R. J. Palacio

83. “Do people look the same when they get to heaven?” “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” “Then how do people recognize each other?” “I don’t know, sweetie.” She sounded tired. “They just feel it. 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.”

— R. J. Palacio

84. “There’s a word like overprotective to describe some parents, but no word that means the opposite. What word do you use to describe parents who don’t protect enough? Underprotective? Neglectful? Self-involved? Lame? All of the above.”

— R. J. Palacio

85. “So here’s the thing about glitter: once it’s out of the bottle, there’s just no way of putting it back. It’s the same with kindness. Once it pours out of your soul, there’s no way of containing it. It just continues to spread from person to person, a shining, sparkling, wonderful thing.”

— R. J. Palacio

86. “You know,” he said, “one of the things you learn when you get old like me is that sometimes, a new situation will come along, and you’ll have no idea what to do. There’s no rule book that tells you how to act in every given situation in life, you know? So what I always say is that it’s always better to err on the side of kindness. That’s the secret. If you don’t know what to do, just be kind. You can’t go wrong.”

— R. J. Palacio

87. “It’s not up to God to make it end, Pastor. Evil will only be stopped when good people decide to put an end to it. It is our fight, not God’s.” -Vivienne.”

— R. J. Palacio

88. “I kind of wanted to tell them that. Like, it’s okay, I know I’m weird-looking, take a look, I don’t bite. Hey, the truth is, if a Wookiee started going to the school all of a sudden, I’d be curious, I’d probably stare a bit!”

— R. J. Palacio

89. “If every person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary – the world really would be a better place. And if you do this, if you act just a little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in you, in every single one of you, the face of God.”

— R. J. Palacio

90. “The things you did, you know they were not right. But that does not mean you are not capable of doing right. It only means that you chose to do wrong.”

— R. J. Palacio

91. “If we spend too much time looking backward, we can’t see where we are going!”

— R. J. Palacio

92. “It looked like someone had taken sidewalk chalk and smudged the colors across the sky with their fingers.”

— R. J. Palacio

93. “The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died.”

— R. J. Palacio

94. “But the good thing about life is that we can fix our mistakes sometimes. We learn from them. We get better.”

— R. J. Palacio

95. “Such a simple thing, kindness. Such a simple thing. A nice word of encouragement, given when needed. An act of friendship. A passing smile.”

— R. J. Palacio

96. “A hamster is basically just a warm potato with fur. I mean, it moves and it’s cute and all, but don’t let anyone try to fool you that it’s the same as a dog.”

— R. J. Palacio

97. “Chewbacca are being applauded for destroying the Death Star. I could almost.”

— R. J. Palacio

98. “When something scary like this happens, it acts like a wake-up call, you know? It makes us reassess what’s important in life. Our family. Our friends. The people we love.”

— R. J. Palacio

99. “I felt very sad and a tiny bit happy at the exact same time, kind.”

— R. J. Palacio

100. “And when good friends need us, we do what we can to help them, right? We can’t just be friends when it’s convenient. Good friendships are worth a little extra effort!”

— R. J. Palacio