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What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

Jane Yolen

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Jane Yolen
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: February 11
Editor
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
New York City
New York
Jane Hyatt Yolen
Jane Hyatt Yolen Stemple
Jane H. Yolen Stemple
Makes
Scholars
Book
Scholar
Heart
Decades
Good
Critics
Time
Touch
Like
Question
Head
Books
Debating

More quotes by Jane Yolen

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Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.
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It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.
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You write to be read. That is the bottom line.
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Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.
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You are a name, not a number. Never forget that name, whatever they tell you here. You will always be Chaya—life—to me.
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Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.
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If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.
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They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they refuse to die.
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Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.
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A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?
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Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door.
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If you love a waist, you waste a love.
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Stories, he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, we are made up of stories. And even the one's that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.
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Exercise the writing muscle every day.
Jane Yolen
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A shadowless man is a monster, a devil, a thing of evil. A man without a shadow is soulless. A shadow without a man is a pitiable shred. Yet together, light and dark, they make a whole.
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A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.
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Wood may remain twenty years in the water, but it is still not a fish.
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Folklore is the perfect second skin. From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world.
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Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.
Jane Yolen
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Write, write, and write some more. Think of writing as a muscle that needs lots of exercise.
Jane Yolen