Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children’s right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.
Encouraging young people to believe in themselves and find their own voice whether it’s through writing, drama or art is so important in giving young people a sense of self-worth.
Anything that gets children reading is fine.
Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.
I’m still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.
Wars become history all too soon and are forgotten all too soon as well, before the lessons can be learned.
Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.
But I didn’t dare. That has always been my trouble. I’ve never dared enough.
I write fiction. I make things up, it’s what I do.
Perhaps it is partly that we need to love books ourselves as parents, grandparents and teachers in order to pass on that passion for stories to our children. It’s not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children.
You know, I really wish now I’d had the nerve to become an actor. Because I’d have been Robert Redford, no question.
Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it!
It’s good to focus on the universal suffering that goes on in any war. Whatever the right and wrongs of the war, there is always universal suffering.
I fill up the well of stories in my head – without ever knowing I’m doing it.
I think there’s something about studying a book which will kill it if you’re not careful.
I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19.
Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.
Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world.
By the time I sit down and face the blank page I am raring to go. I tell it as if I’m talking to my best friend or one of my grandchildren.
There’s a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?