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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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Katherine Paterson
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: October 31
Author
Missionary
Novelist
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Katherine Womeldorf Paterson
Idea
Chaos
Art
Shapes
Order
Meaning
Stories
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Past
Events
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Bringing
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Shape
More quotes by Katherine Paterson
A dream without a plan is just a wish
Katherine Paterson
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
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
It is always sad to write about prejudice, but sometimes when we see it being played out in the lives of fictional characters, we can recognize it in our own lives.
Katherine Paterson
I'm sure my first nine years have had a powerful influence on the kind of books I write.
Katherine Paterson
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
I cannot, will not, withhold from my young readers the harsh realities of human hunger and suffering and loss, but neither will I neglect to plant that stubborn seed of hope that has enabled our race to outlast wars and famines and the destruction of death.
Katherine Paterson
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
It's such a thrill when an adult comes up to me and says, 'I read your book as a child and really loved it.' That's a tremendous compliment.
Katherine Paterson
You have to believe it and you hate it. I don't have to and I think it's beautiful.
Katherine Paterson
On Decoration Day, while everyone else in town was at the cemetery decorating the graves of our Glorious War Dead, Willie Beaner and me, Robert Burns Hewitt, took Mabel Cramm's bloomers and run them up the flagpole in front of the town hall. That was the beginning of all my troubles.
Katherine Paterson
We all learn here by the honorable path of horrible mistakes.
Katherine Paterson
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
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
You don't have to fight dragons to write books. You just have to live deeply the life you've been given.
Katherine Paterson
February is just plain malicious. It knows your defenses are down.
Katherine Paterson
Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.
Katherine Paterson
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
We're alike, Jess would tell himself, me and Miss Edmunds . . . We don't belong at Lark Creek, Julia and me.
Katherine Paterson
It seems to me that there are two great enemies of peace - fear and selfishness.
Katherine Paterson
