Following the lives of high school students, this Spinelli’s ‘Stargirl‘ features some truly impressive quotes about life, change, and societal pressure. Readers are asked to consider the pressure that young people are under to fit in with their peers while also staying true to themselves.
Stargirl
She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.
In this beautiful quote, Jerry Spinelli shows off what many readers love about this novel— his prose. The quote poetically captures the essence of the title character, Stargirl. She defies categorization, slipping through the mental frameworks and judgments that others try to impose on her. In many ways, she’s a symbol of the wild, free, and unpredictable nature that society often seeks to tame or understand.
This notion of attempting to “pin her to a cork board like a butterfly” signifies society’s need to label, control, and understand that which is unconventional.
You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.
This is another interesting quote about the title character, Stargirl. It explores how multi-dimensional she is as a character. She serves as a mirror, the author suggests. Through questioning, through pondering her enigma, you’re led to self-reflection.
These lines tie back to the earlier description of her as an ever-changing, almost ephemeral presence. She’s a character designed not to be fully understood. Instead, she’s meant to provoke thought and spark introspection.
We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past “weird” and “strange” and “goofy.” Her ways knocked us off balance.
These lines about Stargirl delve into the ways that her personality challenges categorization. The terms like “weird,” “strange,” and “goofy” are merely shallow labels that fail to encapsulate Stargirl’s essence. Her ways “knocked us off balance.” This indicates that her uniqueness unsettles preconceived norms and challenges people to reevaluate their perspectives.
The struggle to get past these basic descriptors suggests a collective discomfort with what is not easily understood, one of the primary themes in the novel.
She laughed, and the desert sang.
This beautiful line from the novel is a very interesting and to-the-point way of describing Stargirl and the influence she has on those who meet her. Her laugh/presence is so powerful that it’s able to make something as barren and emotionless as the desert sing.
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?
This quote, like the one above, captures the emotional impact of a moment that feels transformative. The comparison to a baseball bat hitting hard serves to emphasize the immediate and overwhelming emotional reaction.
The Earth
The earth is speaking to us, but we can’t hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then – maybe – the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.
In this quote, the speaker describes Earth and how our senses can often become overstimulated in the modern world. It suggests that the incessant “racket” or noise drowns out the more subtle messages that the world around us is trying to convey. The entire quote is poetic and filled with the promise of deeper insights or a more fundamental connection to the world and cosmos.
This perspective aligns with many philosophical and spiritual traditions that emphasize mindfulness and other forms of meditation.
Living
It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.
This quote touches on the concept that stillness (both physical and mental stillness) is surprisingly elusive. Even when we believe we’re doing “nothing,” we’re actually involved in a myriad of processes.
It challenges readers, perhaps, previously held beliefs that while sitting still, one is doing nothing or is being unproductive. Even our moments of stillness are filled with complex, ongoing processes that are essential to our being, whether we are aware of it or not.
FAQs
What is an important quote from ‘Stargirl’ by Jerry Spinelli?
An important quote from this novel is, “She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl.”
