Jay Asher Quotes

You can't write if you don't read.

I want kids to think that reading can be just as much fun and more so than TV or video games or whatever else they do. I think any other kind of message or morals that I might teach is secondary to first just enjoying a book.

I'm just trying to get kids motivated to be readers by connecting them with a book they like.

Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.

When I visit schools, I try to reach kids who perhaps don't have books at home or aren't that keen on reading. Somehow you draw them in with the pictures and then perhaps they'll want to learn more about it. I use a lot of audience participation and find kids who aren't really part of it and try to include them - to draw in those reluctant readers.

What I care about is readers because without readers I can't make a living... And I think it's a bad thing for the world if people don't read anymore. I want people to read a lot.

My favorite part of speaking at events has never been the speaking, but the reading of my books.

We want a book to be a book. We'll have all the interactive bells and whistles but our intent is to engage young people in reading, not to show them a movie.

Unfortunately, a lot of kids don't read anymore. I don't know what we can do about that.

As a children's author, you get to advocate for reading and writing in general, in a way an adult author might not be able to. It's a really interesting dance we do to get literature into the hands of young people and to help them to become literate and become readers; we want them to grow up reading and continue to do so when they're adults.

This is what I believe is most important: getting good books into the hands of kids - books that will make them want to say, 'Wow, that was great. Give me another one to read.'

I think kids will read more good books than we can possibly produce.

Kids think books are cool, especially when they see that people they think books are cool are reading.

I teach for the Book Trust, which promotes reading and writing with children.

I think movies do play a valuable role in turning people on to the act of reading. I think that phenomenon just creates readers. At first they're going to love 'Harry Potter,' or they may love 'The Hunger Games,' but after that, they're going to love the act of reading and wonder, 'What else can I read?'

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

I love the fact that 'Flowers for Algernon' is doing its part to get people reading.

The only time I felt I was different was when one of my friends said, 'I hate reading' and I stared at her like, 'What kind of an alien creature are you?!' Because it was so incomprehensible to me that someone could dislike reading! That really started my desire to help other children love reading and writing.

I don't think the problem is that people don't read enough mystery books, but that people don't read.

Read everything! I believe that reading made me a writer.

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

To be a writer, you must be a reader, yet as many as 30 per cent of my writing students were not readers.

I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.

Reading is No. 1 - I have to read, or I can't write.

I never want kids to walk away after a school presentation and say, 'I met a writer today.' I want them to say, 'I am a writer.'