Quote

You have to believe it and you hate it. I don't have to and I think it's beautiful.

Katherine Paterson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Katherine Paterson
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: October 31
Author
Missionary
Novelist
Writer
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson
Hate
Beautiful
Believe
Think
Thinking

More quotes by Katherine Paterson

Image
Since my first novel was rescued from a slush pile, it makes me sad that most publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nor are many willing to take chances on novels that are not deemed immediately marketable.
Katherine Paterson
Image
Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed an enormous amount of freedom ordinary people are denied.
Katherine Paterson
Image
I think, she began quietly, I think we want... not just bread for our bellies. We want more than only bread. We want food for our hearts, our souls. We want- how to say it? We want, you know- Puccini music.... we want for our beautiful children some beauty. She leaned over and kissed the curl on her finger. We want roses.
Katherine Paterson
Image
It's like the smarter you are, the more things can scare you.
Katherine Paterson
Image
...those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.
Katherine Paterson
Image
You gotta know someone cares about you, or you just give up.
Katherine Paterson
Image
To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.
Katherine Paterson
Image
You never know ahead of time what something's really going to be like.
Katherine Paterson
Image
The thing I have learned through the years is that one idea 'doth' not a novel make. A novel must be several seemingly unrelated ideas that somehow magically come together to create the fabric of the story.
Katherine Paterson
Image
Shh he said. Look. Where? Can't you see'um? he whispered. All the Terabithians standing on tiptoe to see you. Me? Shh, yes. There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arrving today might be the queen they've been waiting for.
Katherine Paterson
Image
It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.
Katherine Paterson
Image
He [an earnest young reporter] seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children's books is to whip the little rascals into shape.
Katherine Paterson
Image
The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.
Katherine Paterson
Image
I am called to listen to the sound of my own heart -- to write the story within myself that demands to be told at that particular point in my life. And if I do this faithfully, clothing that idea in the flesh of human experience and setting it in a true place, the sound from my heart will resound in the reader's heart.
Katherine Paterson
Image
the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day.
Katherine Paterson
Image
One thing living in Japan did for me was to make me feel that what is left out of a work of art is as important as, if not more important than, what is put in.
Katherine Paterson
Image
The last dregs of winter spoiling the taste of everything.
Katherine Paterson
Image
I guess real maturity, which most of us never achieve, is when you realize that you're not the center of the universe.
Katherine Paterson
Image
It wasn't so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to go it was that he minded being afraid. It was as though he had been made with a great piece missing - one of May Belle's puzzles with this huge gap where somebody's eye should have been. Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts.
Katherine Paterson
Image
We can read the paper or current magazines and learn about national and world events, think about controversial subjects, learn how to disagree respectfully, and how, finally, to act on our convictions. We can read for pure delight, and if we do this as a family or classroom or other group we can build wonderful memories.
Katherine Paterson