Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is a Chinese-born American writer best known for children's novels. For four different books published 1975-1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of three people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth31 October 1932
CityHuai'an, China
CountryUnited States of America
Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.
All of us can think of a book that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf -- that work I abhor -- then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.
The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.
Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.
Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.
I love revision. Where else can spilled milk be turned into ice cream?
As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.
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."
A library is a feast to which we are all invited.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven?