Chris Crutcher Quotes

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Chris Crutcher

Profession : Novelist

Birth : July 17, 1946

I want to look at this character from all points of view. I know I don't want to make them all good or all bad or all anything... the story itself often helps create the character.

Chris Crutcher

If you've seen 'Friday Night Lights' - that was just like my town.

Chris Crutcher

By the time a kid goes to college, if he's taking math or science, at least he knows, or you hope he knows, some basics. But if you're teaching history in college, you have a lot of damage to undo. You basically have to start over because so much of what a kid has already learned is just wrong.

Chris Crutcher

When I turned 50, I realized I was now going to start counting backwards in terms of the years I had left. Then I turned 60, and I just stopped counting. I don't have a fear of death, but I have an awareness that there's a time limit.

Chris Crutcher

The value of a story like 'Deadline' is kids get to look at death at the perfect distance. They can put the book down. They can experience the story, rub up against it, but it's not real life.

Chris Crutcher

In 2004, one of my books, 'Whale Talk,' was chosen as an all-school read in Fowlerville, Michigan, a rural town not far from Detroit. They had done what I thought was a brilliant and innovative thing: decided to teach the book in every discipline, sophomores through seniors.

Chris Crutcher

As much as we'd like to think life is sacred, there's not a lot of evidence for that. The universe is maddeningly casual, giving and taking it.

Chris Crutcher

Nothing about life is sacred until we make it so.

Chris Crutcher

If we're going to make a real dent in the bullying issue, we're going to have to address the bullies themselves: find ways to help empower them that don't include allowing them to be predators or to simply be punished.

Chris Crutcher

If we are to stop bullying in schools, we have to start with teachers and administrators. If we want to stop it, we have to stop it.

Chris Crutcher

The frustration for a parent is that you might be available all the time, but the kid may approach you only about 10% of the time.

Chris Crutcher

Athletics carries its own set of truths, and those truths are diminished when manipulated by people with agendas.

Chris Crutcher

If I have any complaints about my youth... one is that many well-meaning adults lied to me. Not spiteful lies with malicious intent but lies designed to prevent emotional and psychological pain - lies told by the people who cared about me most: my parents, teachers, relatives.

Chris Crutcher

Censors can make a case for zero tolerance in language. They can make the argument that since we don't allow our children to use that language in schools, we also shouldn't give them stories in which it is used.

Chris Crutcher

'Whale Talk' is a tough book, but it is also a compassionate book about telling the truth and about redemption. I didn't draw the tough parts out of thin air; they are stories handed to me by people in pain.

Chris Crutcher

The kids you turn your backs on when you take away their stories are the ones who lose, as well as you as a community of adults who may appear to fear their truths.

Chris Crutcher

I have no personal agenda in whether or not a library keeps 'Whale Talk' or 'Athletic Shorts' or any of my books shelved.

Chris Crutcher

It's hard to imagine my life not writing. I love it.

Chris Crutcher

What I hope my writing reflects... is a sense of the connections between all human beings... and a different perspective on the true nature of courage. For me, those are things worth exploring and writing about.

Chris Crutcher