William Jay Smith Quotes

The best thing about being Children's Laureate has definitely been all the children and teens I've met.

I discovered that in a story I could safely dream any dream, hope any hope, go anywhere I pleased any time I pleased, fight any foe, win or lose, live or die. My stories created a safe experimental learning place.

If you're not a parent, if you're an aunt or uncle or neighbor, books are an amazing gift.

I absolutely love writing and sharing my enthusiasm with students, and because of 'Hattie Big Sky,' Montana holds a special place in my heart.

Like the child, the creative writing student is posited as a centre of vulnerable creativity, needful of attention and authority.

For a child, reading a book can be such an intense experience.

I was very fortunate that a teacher saw that I read a lot and got bored very easily and had a lot of energy, so she said, 'You've got to go to this youth theater.' I joined Manchester Youth Theatre when I was really young, and I just loved putting on and being involved in plays and telling stories.

The best thing anyone can do in life is to give opportunities to a child.

Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.

I feel very privileged to have reached so many kids because a life without stories, without the power of books, would be a very grey world, it's good to add colour.

I also have a role model back in New Zealand, a woman called Miranda Harcourt. She's an actress and a writer. Her willingness to stay open to material is really great. I read a lot, and I try to watch and listen to diverse material.

Somehow, I realized I could write books about black characters who reflected my own experiences or otherworldly experiences - not just stories of history, poverty and oppression.

I get suggestions all the time. People feel quite free at events or even on the street to tell me what they think I should be writing. What I've learned, though, is that this thing, this connection, has to be in place for me to be able to kind of launch into a world imaginatively.

People still try to sell books that way - as 'books can take you to foreign lands.' We've given children this idea that reading and books are a nice option, if you want that kind of thing. I hope we can get over that idea.

I had no real idea I was going to become a writer. It was just a game for me. I just liked pretending, daydreaming and imagining.

Whether you're starving in a garret or living in a castle like J. K. Rowling, I had this image of the author as a flawless, composed individual, serene in the knowledge they were creating art.

You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

You have kids growing up in some of the worst circumstances financially, living in some of the worst ghettos, and they succeed. They succeed because an adult figure, typically a mother, maybe a grandmother, nourishes the kid, supports the kid, protects the kid, encourages the kid to succeed. It's as if the environment never happened.

You can learn so much from children, and you can give them so much.

I hate the idea of any kid missing out on the magic of reading.

My favourite genre lies inside myself, and as I follow my favourite stories, characters and images, it sums up to a certain genre. So at times even I have to try to guess which genre a film will be after I've made it.

Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.

As a master of graphic creation, as teacher, historian, and roving ambassador of comics, Jerry Robinson has ensured that future generations of talented kids will continue to imagine and then put marks on paper.

I've just always loved books, and I love the idea that we're all just really made of stories. I do also like the idea that anyone can love books. Books don't care how educated you are or what you do for a living.

One of my favorite things to do with my children is to read to them.