Quotes from Betsy Byars

the real reason I had wanted to grow up, the main reason I had been willing to even consider becoming an adult, was so I could have as many pets as I wanted.

For me, reading books and writing them are tied together. The words of other writers teach me and refresh me and inspire me.

My own hobbies are rather quiet. I like to read and do needlework, and I love animals.

When I type a title page, I hold it and I look at it and I think, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and I'll have a book.

It was as if her life was a huge kaleidoscope, and the kaleidoscope had been turned and now everything was changed. The same stones shaken, no longer made the same design.

I have cried over myself a hundred times this summer, she thought, I have wept over my big feet and my skinny legs and my nose, I have even cried over my stupid shoes, and now when I have true sadness there are no tears left.

The people you don't know turn out to be exactly like the people you do know, same faults, same everything.

That was the trouble with life—it never quite fulfilled its promises.

I usually get the title for a book first, and I type it up immediately. I sit there and look at it and admire it, and I think to myself, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and I'l have a book. It is such a pleasurable moment that I type many more title pages than I could ever use.

What's gotten into him?" "Five-Thirty," I called back. "I didn't ask the time," she called. "Get that dog out of there, and fill that hole in.

Pete opened the cellar doors.

mother to the stairs. "Can I ask you something?

What I was going to miss the most, though, were just everyday things that weren't planned at all.......That's the kind of fun that doesn't sound like much when you tell it, but I would miss it on the farm. -Tom, The Midnight Fox/Chapter 2