Katherine Paterson Quotes
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Punch after punch after punch. February is a mean bully. Nothing could be worse - except August.
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He [an earnest young reporter] seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children's books is to whip the little rascals into shape.
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The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before.
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I think, she began quietly, I think we want... not just bread for our bellies. We want more than only bread. We want food for our hearts, our souls. We want- how to say it? We want, you know- Puccini music.... we want for our beautiful children some beauty. She leaned over and kissed the curl on her finger. We want roses.
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This is what art is all about. It is weaving fabric from the feathers you have plucked from your own breast. But no one must ever see the process - only the finished bolt of goods. They must never suspect that that crimson thread running through the pattern is blood.
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We're alike, Jess would tell himself, me and Miss Edmunds . . . We don't belong at Lark Creek, Julia and me.
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Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.
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What we need to wake people up to now is the crisis in imagination and concern for the greater good. We have no idea what the next ten years, much less the next fifty years, will demand of the coming generation. What we do know is that unless we have a people prepared and eager to meet those crises creatively and compassionately, there is not much hope for this poor old planet of ours.
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Trouble can always be borne when it is shared.
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I woke up one morning and realized that what I wanted to say to everyone - children, young people, adults - was: Read for your life.
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As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.
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You don't have to fight dragons to write books. You just have to live deeply the life you've been given.
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I love to read. But I loved to read a lot longer than I started to love writing.
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We can read the paper or current magazines and learn about national and world events, think about controversial subjects, learn how to disagree respectfully, and how, finally, to act on our convictions. We can read for pure delight, and if we do this as a family or classroom or other group we can build wonderful memories.
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All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.
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If you could hold your nose to avoid a stink, or close your eyes to cut out a sight, why not shut off your brain to avoid a thought?
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The difference between writing a story and simply relating past events is that a story, in order to be acceptable, must have shape and meaning. It is the old idea that art is the bringing of order out of chaos.
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There are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.
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Sometimes you need to give people something that's for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it.
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My writing comes from ideas that make a sound in my heart.
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A great novel is a kind of conversion experience. We come away from it changed.
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Impressed. Lord. He had nearly drowned.
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Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it.
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Hope ... is not a feeling; it is something you do.
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I think if a book has the power to move a reader, it also has the power to offend a reader. And you want your books to have power, so you just have to take what comes with that.
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To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.
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What I have come to believe is that joy is the twin sister of gratitude. I am most joyful when I am most grateful.
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Youth is a mortal wound.
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If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.
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Death is very mysterious to us. One moment someone is there with us, and the next moment they're not.
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