Top 200 R. J. Palacio Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “I’ve always thought that good teaching is about illumination. Sure, we teach things kids might not know, but a lot of the time, we’re just shedding light on the stuff they already do know... Kids know how to read, but I’m trying to get them to love reading. Kids know how to write, but I’m trying to inspire them to express themselves better. In both instances, they have the materials they need already inside them: I’m just here to guide them a bit, to shed a little light. To illume.” -Mr. Browne.”

— R. J. Palacio

152. “It is always brave to be kind.”

— R. J. Palacio

153. “That’s not to say there haven’t been some changes that have happened. As.”

— R. J. Palacio

154. “Its the shingaling, baby!”

— R. J. Palacio

155. “But the truth is, I knew things wouldn’t change much. I knew it would be the way it had been after the sleepover. Like we had taken a secret trip together. A voyage that no one else knew about. And when we returned from our journey, we each went back to our own homes. Some friendships are like that. Maybe even the best friendships are like that. The connections are always there. They’re just invisible to the eye.”

— R. J. Palacio

156. “You see, it is not just that he saved my life. He saved my very being. My hope. My... light.” -Grandmere.”

— R. J. Palacio

157. “Yo, Darth Hideous. You’re so ugly you should wear a mask every day! And: I h8 u, Freak! And the last one: I bet your mother wishes you’d never been born. You should do everybody a favor – and die. Of.”

— R. J. Palacio

158. “The Empire Strikes Back? The bald guy with the cool bionic radio-transmitter thing that wraps around the back of his skull?”

— R. J. Palacio

159. “My mother is the kind of person who has a happy face for the rest of the world but not a lot left over for me.”

— R. J. Palacio

160. “Via. I can’t say I always wanted to go to school because that wouldn’t be exactly true. What I wanted was to go to school, but only if I could be like every other kid going to school. Have lots of friends and hang out after school and stuff like that. I have a few really good friends now. Christopher is my best.”

— R. J. Palacio

161. “If every single 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.”

— R. J. Palacio

162. “What kind of people are we? What kind of person are you? Isn’t that the most important thing of all? Isn’t that the kind of question we should be asking ourselves all the time? “What kind of person am I?”

— R. J. Palacio

163. “Naciste original, no te conviertas en una copia.”

— R. J. Palacio

164. “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.”

— R. J. Palacio

165. “Algunas veces es bueno volver a empezar.”

— R. J. Palacio

166. “If you have a choice of being right or kind, choose kind.”

— R. J. Palacio

167. “Not just the front rows, but the whole audience suddenly got up on their feet, whooping, hollering, clapping like crazy. It was a standing ovation. For me.”

— R. J. Palacio

168. “He’s just a kid. The weirdest-looking kid I’ve ever seen, yes. But just a kid.”

— R. J. Palacio

169. “When I look at Auggie and all the challenges he has to face on a daily basis,” he said, patting his heart. “I’m in awe of how he manages to simply show up every day. With a smile on his face. And I want him to have validation that this year was a triumph for him. That he’s made an impact. I mean, the way the kids rallied around him after the horrible incident at the nature reserve? It was because of him. He inspired that kindness in them.”

— R. J. Palacio

170. “Countless doctors have drawn little tic-tac-toe grids for my parents over the years to try to explain the genetic lottery to them. Geneticists.”

— R. J. Palacio

171. “Via had warned me about lunch in middle school, so I guess I should have known it would be hard.”

— R. J. Palacio

172. “The point is we all have to put up with the bad days. Now, unless you want to be treated like a baby the rest of your life, or like a kid with special needs, you just have to suck it up and go.”

— R. J. Palacio

173. “It’s kind of funny how parents actually end up forming the same little groups their kids form.”

— R. J. Palacio

174. “But every Spring It groweth young again, And fairies sing. – Flower Fairies of the Spring, 1923.”

— R. J. Palacio

175. “I couldn’t wait to go home.”

— R. J. Palacio

176. “They were a gloomy party that night, and the gloom gathered still deeper on them in the following days. They had crossed the enchanted stream; but beyond it the path seemed to straggle on just as before, and in the forest they could see no change.”

— R. J. Palacio

177. “Jill wants to buy honey at an outdoor market. One vendor is selling a twenty-six-ounce jar for $3.12. Another vendor is selling a sixteen-ounce jar for $2.40. Which is the better deal, and how much money per ounce will Jill save by choosing it?”

— R. J. Palacio

178. “And being at school was awful in the beginning. Every new class I had was like a new chance for kids to “not stare” at me. They would sneak peeks at me from behind their notebooks or when they thought I wasn’t looking. They would take the longest way around me to avoid bumping into me in any way, like I had some germ they could catch, like my face was contagious.”

— R. J. Palacio

179. “But hey, if they want to give me a medal for being me, that’s okay. I’ll take it.”

— R. J. Palacio

180. “Fala agora, ou cala-te para sempre.”

— R. J. Palacio

181. “Then they came out of the narrow valley and at once she saw the reason. There stood Peter and Edmund and all the rest of Aslan’s army fighting desperately against the crowd of horrible creatures whom she had seen last night; only now, in the daylight, they looked even stranger and more evil and more deformed.”

— R. J. Palacio

182. “His eyes are about an inch below where they should be on his face, almost to halfway down his cheeks.”

— R. J. Palacio

183. “She picked up a different photo from the nightstand and handed it to me to look at. At first, I thought it was just another copy of the class picture, because it was exactly the same size as the class picture Dad had in his hands, and everything in it was exactly the same. I started to look away in disgust, but Mom pointed to a place on the photo – the place where Auggie used to be! He was nowhere in the photo.”

— R. J. Palacio

184. “Auggie, Mom’s taken her to the vet like three times in the last two months. She’s been throwing up left and right. Haven’t you noticed?” “But I didn’t know she was sick!” Via didn’t say anything, but she put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to her. I started to cry again.”

— R. J. Palacio

185. “It’s so strange how one day you can be on this earth, and the next day not. Where did she go? Will I really ever see her again, or is that a fairy tale?”

— R. J. Palacio

186. “But realizing that Ximena Chin, under her layers and layers and layers of snarkiness and mischief, could actually be kind of sweet. When she wasn’t being kind of mean.”

— R. J. Palacio

187. “One thing I’ve learned after being a middle-school director for twenty years: there are almost always more than two sides to every story. Although I don’t know the details, I have an inkling about what may have sparked the confrontation with Julian. While nothing justifies striking another student – ever – I also know good friends are sometimes worth defending.”

— R. J. Palacio

188. “Jeg tror, at den eneste i hele verden, der er klar over, hvor normal jeg er, er mig selv.”

— R. J. Palacio

189. “And then all of a sudden she let out the biggest, loudest, smelliest fart in the history of farts. Mom.”

— R. J. Palacio

190. “Your best takes your time” -Thomas.”

— R. J. Palacio

191. “Let them fall, Mowgli. They are only tears.”

— R. J. Palacio

192. “Never a dull moment,” Dad repeated.”

— R. J. Palacio

193. “Sometimes kids don’t even know they’re leaders until they start to lead” -Mr. Browne.”

— R. J. Palacio

194. “It was black and furry, with a pointy little snout and bright black eyes and small ears that flopped down.”

— R. J. Palacio

195. “The chocolate milk in the glass now had a two-inch froth on top.”

— R. J. Palacio

196. “On the other hand, I’m really excited.”

— R. J. Palacio

197. “Mom blew a kiss to us and closed the door. We watched the car leave and then Via closed the door. She looked at me a second, and then she hugged me very, very tight while we both cried a million tears.”

— R. J. Palacio

198. “Built with memories instead of with stone.”

— R. J. Palacio

199. “As I wrote down Mr. Browne’s September precept, I suddenly realized that I was going to like school. No matter what.”

— R. J. Palacio

200. “That’s when I saw Daisy sitting near my bed. I mean, I knew it wasn’t Daisy, but for a second I saw a shadow that looked just like her. I didn’t think it was a dream then, but now, looking back, I know it must have been. It didn’t make me sad to see her at all: it just filled me up with nice feelings inside. She was gone after a second, and I couldn’t see her again in the darkness. The.”

— R. J. Palacio