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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
Writer
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson
Order
Meaning
Stories
Difference
Past
Events
Relating
Ideas
Differences
Acceptable
Must
Simply
Bringing
Writing
Story
Shape
Idea
Chaos
Art
Shapes

More quotes by Katherine Paterson

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It seems to me that there are two great enemies of peace - fear and selfishness.
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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.
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Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader.
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You gotta know someone cares about you, or you just give up.
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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.
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...One reason I became a writer was that I figured out that if you call yourself a writer, you can read all you want and people think that you are working.
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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.
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Some folks are natural born kickers. They can always find a way to turn disaster into butter.
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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.
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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
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The world that is in me is the only world I have by which to grasp the world outside and as I write fiction, it is the chart by which I must steer.
Katherine Paterson
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We all learn here by the honorable path of horrible mistakes.
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Everything comes in useful once in a hundred years.
Katherine Paterson
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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.
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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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I'm sure my first nine years have had a powerful influence on the kind of books I write.
Katherine Paterson
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As much pleasure as young people get from Twittering and texting, there is no way these activities will nourish their minds and spirits the way literature can.
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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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
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a work that intends to be art must first be entertaining.
Katherine Paterson