Julie Andrews Quotes

I began attempting to write for children under the mistaken assumption that writing for children was easy.

It is extremely important to me to write for children.

I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.

A lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.

Writing imaginative tales for the young is like sending coals to Newcastle. For coals.

Every novelist should write something for children at least once in his lifetime.

Writing for children is my... that's my medium, you know, and the medium is the picture book, which is a very particular kind of book. I try to give children what I would give anybody, you know. I become interested in something. I find something fascinating. It has to fascinate me, and then I want to give it to them.

Many children's writers don't have children of their own.

It was a combination of an intense interest in children's literature, which I've always had, and the feeling that I'd just have a go and see if I could do it.

I've never written a children's book, but when people meet me for the first time and I say I write books, they invariably reply, 'Children's books?' Maybe it's something about my face.

I think probably you can either write for kids, or you can't. That ability to imaginatively be a child and see the world as a child and feel and think like a child - you either have that ability or you don't.

Children's books are often seen as the poor relation of literature. But children are just as demanding as adult readers, if not more so. I should know. I'm a children's writer myself.

You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

I've learned to accept that I'm a children's writer, even if it's not what I set out to become. It's what I should have been all along, and I'll stay in this role as long as I'm a writer.

I know some children's writers write for specific children, or for the children they once were, but I never have. I just thought children might like my sort of visual humour.

Writing for children may have kept me young at heart.

It's really fun to write something for kids. You can make it a little bit more extreme and crazy than you would for adults.

In India, not enough importance is given to writing for children. And what could be more important than the enrichment of young minds with great literature?

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

And please God, grant me the wisdom to remember that I am writing for children, not golden stickers.

I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.

If you are writing children's books, you need to be a ruthless killer.

To write for children at all is an act of faith.

I believe that if a child has a feel for writing and wants to write, there is an audience. Children should just dive in and go at it. I would encourage children to write about themselves and things that are happening to them. It is a lot easier and they know the subject better if they use something out of their everyday lives as an inspiration. Read stories, listen to stories, to develop an understanding of what stories are all about.