Best Whale Talk Quotes by Chris Crutcher

"In the end, write it down. Back up and find the story."

"The best way to write a story, be it fact or fiction, is to believe aliens will find it someday and make a movie."

"My parents have always encouraged me to be loud when I run into racism."

"The universe doesn’t create special dispensation for a guy because he can run faster or jump higher."

"The better you know yourself, the better chance you have of staying clear of trouble."

"I’ve never wanted to be anyone else, and I don’t want to be any other color."

"The last time I tried to power struggle this kid, he was five years old, and I was at least three years too late."

"The universe offers up whatever we need whenever we need it."

"If you’re Dad, that’s when you scoop them up, but it occurs to me that our bathtub is All Night Fitness for potato bugs."

"We are going to have to like one another a lot to get through the season."

"This is truly becoming a Far Side swimming team."

"If we keep this up, we could hurt ourselves."

"I’m big enough—old enough—to stop guys like Rich, but Heidi’s not."

"There is nothing of the rage and desperation of the last two hours in her eyes."

"Heidi’s eyes focus on her brown arms, scrubbing."

"Learning to live without Rich Marshall is like learning to live without cholera."

"The feeling I had inside when Heidi and I were scrubbing ourselves 'clean' will keep Rich Marshall in my life."

"I’m going to have to live here after you’re gone. We can be creative, but I have a certain respect for athletics myself, so don’t push it too far."

"My goal is to not assault anyone with my leg for laughing at it."

"She’ll stay with it as long as there’s somebody like you to watch over her."

"You should have to be a lot more than decent to be a kid’s hero."

"I wouldn’t do it, but she’s fragile and you’re the only other person to have made good contact with her besides me."

"It’s okay, I don’t know. Maybe you were right."

"Some people’s parents are just stupid and mean; so mean they would cheat their own children out of having a great friend like you."

"I can think of better things than 'nigger' to holler at a kid."
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"The last thing in the world you want is to be in Rich Marshall’s cast of characters. He’s a stalker, pure and simple, and stalkers believe what they want to believe."

"I feel so weak when I get like that. But the truth is, that’s just the way it is with me some of the time, and you might as well know it."

"I tell myself I learned an important lesson the hard way: that the universe doesn’t make allowances for mental lapses or ignorance, but that maybe I’m a better man because I know that."

"You don’t get like Rich is by being treated well all your life."

"Just because you understand the shit in someone else’s life doesn’t mean you don’t stand up for your own."

"You have to see everyone in relationship to you."

"When the rage takes you over, you do what the rage tells you."

"I started wishing I were a whale. At least they know what it is to be a whale."

"We’ve gotta keep this team together just to keep that boy out of an institution."

"If you’re going to be a swimmer, you gotta swim."

"It’s low priority until after he hurts someone."

"You wait there and make sure the technology is working."

"I don’t know an athlete in the world with more courage than Andy Mott."

"I swear the guy would do anything for any one of us."

"This is okay…. Promise you won’t… Not one minute for revenge."

"Guess I killed one and I saved one. Tell your mother… I love her."