Top 200 R. J. Palacio Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Sometimes we hate the things we’re afraid of.”

— R. J. Palacio

52. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

54. “Her smile hugged me.”

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

56. “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

57. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

60. “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

61. “You have to be willing to work harder than everyone else to achieve your goals and dreams! The way I see it, a dream is like a drawing in your head that comes to life. You have to imagine it first. Then you have to work extremely hard to make it come true.”

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

63. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

65. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

67. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

70. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

73. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

75. “What kind of person am I?”

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

78. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

80. “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

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. “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

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. “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

86. “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

87. “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

88. “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

89. “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

90. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

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

— R. J. Palacio

93. “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

94. “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

95. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

97. “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

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

— R. J. Palacio

99. “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

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