Quotes from Deborah Ellis

In 'Off to War, Voices of Soldier's Children,' kids from Canada and the United States talk about what it is like when their mother or father goes off to war - and comes home again.

In refugee camps around the world, I met people who were gone. They were still walking around but had lost so much that they were unable to claim any sort of identity. Others I met found who they truly were, and they generally found it through service to others. They became teachers when there was no school, books or pencils.

There's a big thing in Canada that parents need to talk to their children about drugs and sex. I don't think talking to your kids about war is any less important than that.

I think most people, no matter what their situation, manage to find joy and comfort in their daily lives. I also think things fall apart.

I didn't create this world," she said to herself. "I only have to live in it.

He died on the floor, but he was surrounded by music and by people who loved him,' said the pastor, as he knelt with them to pray. 'Many are the kings. whose death was not as good.

Good literature is not the sole key to a sustained livable future for all, but it is certainly one of the keys

They were so pretty," she said. And then she died.

Gli Afghani amano le cose belle» disse, «ma hanno visto così tanti orrori che a volte dimenticano quanto puù essere belle un fiore.»

It was the 1990s, and the world was a mess.

to the children we force to be braver than they should have to be.

Parvana found it all very confusing.

but there will be other things, new things. That's how it is with change. You leave one thing behind, and there's something else to take it's place.

But there will be other things, new things. That's how it is with change. You leave one thing behind, and there's something else to take its place.

You? Common sense?" Asif laughed.

Nobody really owns anything. We give back our bodies at the end of our lives. We own our thoughts, but everything else is just borrowed. We use it for a while, then pass it on.

We never know who we are going to be until we are tested, but perhaps we can test ourselves without going to the extremes of war. Perhaps we can be kinder now, live with less now, reach out to others now - and build an inner reserve of a strong identity that will hold us up even when everything else falls away.

I was really bored, pretty antisocial, and not much of a joiner, and people thought that was a problem. I hated high school. In a way, it was good... I think, for a writer, it's good to be comfortable with being on the outside.

We owe it to our children to be honest about the world and to provide them with material written specially for them.

While the war in Iraq was raging, I spent some time in neighbouring Jordan, meeting with Iraqi refugees who fled their country to try to find some place of safety. I interviewed many families about what had happened to them and what they did as a result.

When the Taliban took over in 1996, the news of their crimes hit the Toronto papers. As a feminist and as an anti-war activist, I heard about what was happening to women, and I wanted to do something to support those folks.

If I'm going to be a pessimist, then I should just stop writing for young people because that's too heavy a burden to put on young readers. But also, I get to meet with people who have waded through horrible things, and they get up every morning, and they try to do their best.

As a woman in Canada, I get to do whatever I want to do and I'm used to that. I'm used to not having my government tell me my life is going to be restricted because I'm female.

One of the things that has really hit home for me is that the world is how we decide it is going to be. Very few things just happen. They grow out of history, and they grow out of the present, and the more we can get a sense of how our actions lead into other actions in the future, hopefully we'll learn to make better decisions.