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I believe that culture begins in the cradle . . .To do without tales and stories and books is to lose humanity's past, is to have no star map for our future.

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
Stars
Maps
Future
Tales
Culture
Begins
Stories
Star
Past
Lose
Book
Loses
Without
Humanity
Believe
Books
Cradle

More quotes by Jane Yolen

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Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And can remind us that the swallows still sing around the smokestacks.
Jane Yolen
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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?
Jane Yolen
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Touch magic. Pass it on.
Jane Yolen
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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.
Jane Yolen
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You write to be read. That is the bottom line.
Jane Yolen
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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.
Jane Yolen
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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.
Jane Yolen
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Exercise the writing muscle every day.
Jane Yolen
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Language helps develp life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.
Jane Yolen
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If you love a waist, you waste a love.
Jane Yolen
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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.
Jane Yolen
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The main plot line is simple: Getting your character to the foot of the tree, getting him up the tree, and then figuring out how to get him down again.
Jane Yolen
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Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.
Jane Yolen
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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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Intuition works best when you remember that “tuition” is part of it. You need to have paid ahead of time (ie done your prep work) so as to prepare the ground for intuition.
Jane Yolen
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Wood may remain twenty years in the water, but it is still not a fish.
Jane Yolen
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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.
Jane Yolen
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Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
Jane Yolen
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Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.
Jane Yolen
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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.
Jane Yolen