Quotes from Katherine Paterson

I like to write about a lot of things, which is why my books are different. This is probably why I don't like to write sequels, but chiefly I like to write about people.

Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.

The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.

If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven?

Sometimes you need to give people something that's for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it.

Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'

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.

Our fundamental task as human beings is to seek out connections-to exercise our imaginations.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.

Hope ... is not a feeling; it is something you do.

Lord, let me heed the angels you put in my path.

The very persons who have taken away my time and space are those who have given me something to say.

It's crazy isn't it? She shook her head. You have to believe it, but you hate it. I don't have to believe it, and I think it's beautiful. She shook her head again. It's crazy.

We all learn here by the honorable path of horrible mistakes.

Church always seemed the same. Jess could tune it out the same way he tuned out school, with his body standing up and sitting down in unison with the rest of the congregation but his mind numb and floating, not really thinking or dreaming but at least free.

Jess believed, that she thought he was the best. It was not the kind of best that counted either at school or at home, but it was a genuine kind of best. He kept the knowledge of it buried inside himself like a pirate treasure. He was rich, very rich, but no one could know about it for now except his fellow outlaw, Julia Edmunds.

Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.

Miss Edmunds was one of his secrets. He was in love with her. Not the kind of silly stuff Ellie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone. This was too real and too deep to talk about, even to think about very much.

Leslie was one of those people who sat quietly at her desk, never whispering or daydreaming or chewing gum, doing beautiful schoolwork, and yet her brain was so full of mischief that if the teacher could have once seen through that mask of perfection, she would have thrown her out in horror.

Someday, when he was good enough, he would ask her to write them in a book and let him do all the pictures.

We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words, which can only be hinted at through the means of a story. And somehow, miraculously, a story that comes from deep in my heart calls from a reader that which is deepest in his or her heart, and together from our secret hidden selves we create a story that neither of us could have told alone.

Ain't 'cha gonna run? she asked. No, he said, shoving the sheet away. I'm gonna fly.

those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.

I don't care. I don't care. He was crying now, crying so hard he could barely breathe.