Toby Jones Quotes

I'm a voice for children's books and children's reading.

If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.

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

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

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.

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.

Reading should be a repeat performance.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

The fact is that our kids aren't reading books - or frankly, much of anything lately. Schools are under funded, some schools even closing their libraries. Parents have to realize that it's their job, and not the school's job, to get kids into the habit of reading for fun.

I never thought I'd be a writer. I never thought I'd be able to read a book, let alone write one. So if books like this inspire kids to write, or even read a whole book, I think it's good.

I want to see children curled up with books, finding an awareness of themselves as they discover other people's thoughts. I want them to make the connection that books are people's stories, that writing is talking on paper, and I want them to write their own stories. I'd like my books to provide that connection for them.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity.

Inspiring passion in children for books, and the world of imagination and creativity fuelled by them, is a fundamental reason for why the Children's Laureate post exists.

If a big person invests time in reading, kids learn reading is important, the child is important, words are important, stories are important.

It seems like just yesterday my son was hiding under the table to avoid reading. Now, he's writing books longer than mine!

I was very happy and honored to create the Professor Garfield Foundation with Ball State to make reading fun.

Bore children, and they stop reading. There's no room for self-indulgence or showing off or setting the scene.

I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.

I can't actually wrap my mind around it easily - I can't really visualize what 2 million books looks like... So I try to keep it real for myself by focusing on individual anecdotes of how my books have helped kids learn to love reading.

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.

Writers don't write writing, they write reading. When I was a kid, I read four or five books a week. And that is how I became a writer.

My mother insisted that her children read.

I think it's extremely important that children are exposed to reading.