She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the spirit of joy and kindness that can exist independently of external circumstances or social connections.
Jerry Spinelli's quote highlights the pure, unconditioned nature of a person's spirit. The individual described embodies joy and friendship regardless of their surroundings, suggesting that true happiness and friendliness come from within rather than from external validation or societal norms. It encourages embracing one's individuality and spreading positivity, leading to authentic connections with others.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of kindness in schools, emphasizing that one does not need friends to be friendly.
I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it's not a symphony at all. There's no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It's as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning its instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the music mess of it.
She dreams a lot. She dreams of Ondines and falling maidens and houses burning in the night. But search her dreams all you like and you'll never find Prince Charming. No knight on a white horse gallops into her dreams to carry her away. When she dreams of love, she dreams of smashed potatoes.
A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs it is, it can't seem to make up it's mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, even frantic, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake.
Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you eat lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morning, he's the first person you think of.
No one's hurt is too small, no worry too removed, no blessing so elusive that it cannot be seen by the eyes in the back of the human heart.
A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?
I was told so many times when I was a kid, 'I can't be friends with you, you're too intense, you're too sad all the time.' I really thought that when I made the first album that everyone would understand me, all the people who weren't my friends would become my friends.
Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; _x000D_ Yet ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men.
Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.
If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot: You will wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind.
The friends we have lost do not repose under the ground...they are buried deep in our hearts. It has been thus ordained that they may always accompany us.
I do not believe in communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have got are Communists.
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