Mal Peet Quotes

I find writing for children much easier. I don't mean it's less demanding - you've got to have a talent for it and you've got to work very hard - but you don't have to pull your guts out and lay them on the line in quite the same way as when you're writing for adults.

When I was starting to write, I was fascinated with 'Knuffle Bunny' by Mo Willems. I remember taking it home and typing it out, trying to figure out how it worked. It's just a classic, with dauntingly few words.

Writing for children is an art in itself, and a most interesting one.

I like to think that I am telling a story rather than writing it.

Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.

Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view.

The great thing about making picture books is that you can make absolutely anything you want happen. It's a bit like making a film, but you don't need lots of money for actors and costumes - you just need pens, paper, and your imagination.

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

Poetry taught me a great deal about language and images, but when it came to plotting, I was stumped. It's been very much a learn-by-doing thing for me.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

In older science fiction stories, they had to rely on storytelling as opposed to spectacle. The old run of the 'Twilight Zone,' the star was the writing and the storytelling, and the characters and the twists and the cleverness in the setup and payoff and execution.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'

I'm not a biographer, I'm a novelist.

Part of the joy of writing for kids is that you have to have a real adventure story. You can get really involved in the fantastic in a way that perhaps you can't so much in adult fiction.

The great pleasure for me in writing short stories is the fierce, elegant challenge.

I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

One of the reasons I began to write was because I wanted stories for my children where the characters spoke as they did and had similar life experiences.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

I used to want to be a children's writer, because I would have all these great ideas when I was little, and I'd write them and draw them, and turn them into class.

People think writing a children's book is something you could do in an afternoon but it's actually really hard.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

I enjoy receiving and giving realistic fiction, for both children and adults, with strong characters, beautiful language, and humane visions.

Over the years, a number of people have asked me why I tend to write at this great length. I've put some thought into the answer, and it can be boiled down one word: consequences. Well, maybe two words: consequences and characters. Or perhaps, consequences, characters, and the subconscious mind - above all the subconscious mind.