Dar Williams Quotes

I wrote a children's book because children have the most open minds. They are the people who really want to learn.

Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have traveled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.

I can't imagine not being in a phase where I'm trying to understand something or create something. That's the essence of life.

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.

Learning is the new skill. Imagination, creation and asking new questions are at its core.

The day you stop learning and creating must be the most boring day.

If you read, the world is your oyster. It truly is. Reading makes everything possible.

I think that we all absolutely have curiosity. It brings about knowledge. It's energizing. It's spiritually empowering. It makes us more interesting as people.

People inspire me. Curiosity inspires me. Mystery inspires me.

I understood right from the start that every set of library doors were the sort of magic portals that lead to other lands. My God, right within reach there were dinosaurs and planets and presidents and girl detectives!

There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

The older I get, the more my curiosity grows, and every book I write is a new exploration.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

Paris is an ideal place to become informed, while Venice is a place to think and write.

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

As I see it, whoever's doing the inventing is also doing most of the learning - and probably having most of the fun.

Once, the world was full of mysteries, some of them frightening, some of them wonderful, some of them merely fascinating. Now, it can be a banal and predictable place, the tracks of daily life so well-beaten and defined, our culture awash with the imbecile obvious, our existence suffocating in safety. But mysteries remain.

Knowledge comes from the past, so it's safe. It is also out of date. It's the opposite of originality... Experience is the opposite of being creative.

I think reading is important for a variety of things. I mean, first of all, it's a way to get information and find out what's going on in the world. But also, it helps your imagination.