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You never know ahead of time what something's really going to be like.

Katherine Paterson

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Katherine Paterson
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: October 31
Author
Missionary
Novelist
Writer
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson
Something
Really
Never
Time
Like
Ahead
Going

More quotes by Katherine Paterson

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Miss Edmunds was one of his secrets. He was in love with her. Not the kind of silly stuff Ellie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone. This was too real and too deep to talk about, even to think about very much.
Katherine Paterson
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Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.
Katherine Paterson
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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
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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
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You gotta know someone cares about you, or you just give up.
Katherine Paterson
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We all learn here by the honorable path of horrible mistakes.
Katherine Paterson
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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
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Reading has made such a profound difference to my life. I'm sure I became a writer because of the power of literature in my own life.
Katherine Paterson
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Youth is a mortal wound.
Katherine Paterson
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The difference between writing a story and simply relating past events is that a story, in order to be acceptable, must have shape and meaning. It is the old idea that art is the bringing of order out of chaos.
Katherine Paterson
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Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious.
Katherine Paterson
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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
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You think it's so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well it ain't.
Katherine Paterson
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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
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I know a movie and a book are two different things and you are going do different media in different ways. No author can want a movie to be exactly like the book because then it will be a bad movie.
Katherine Paterson
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If you could hold your nose to avoid a stink, or close your eyes to cut out a sight, why not shut off your brain to avoid a thought?
Katherine Paterson
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Lord, let me heed the angels you put in my path.
Katherine Paterson
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...those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.
Katherine Paterson
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Children have to have access to books, and a lot of children can't go to a store and buy a book. We need not only our public libraries to be funded properly and staffed properly, but our school libraries. Many children can't get to a public library, and the only library they have is a school library.
Katherine Paterson
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If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.
Katherine Paterson