Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

The usual run of children's books left me cold, and at the age of six I decided to write a book of my own. I managed the first line, 'I am a swallow.' Then I looked up and asked, 'How do you spell telephone wires?

My ultimate crush may be Judith McNaught - I met her once more than 20 years ago, and she was incredibly kind and encouraging to me. I adore that woman. But I also fangirl over aspiring or beginning authors, because every time I talk with them, I'm so energized and inspired.

When I wrote my stories in elementary school, I signed them all 'Karen E. Bender' with the squiggly 'E.' I wanted, from an early age, to be a writer, and that name - that E - was a way of pretending I knew how to do it.

Until I was about 7, I thought books were just there, like trees. When I learned that people actually wrote them, I wanted to, too, because all children aspire to inhuman feats like flying. Most people grow up to realize they can't fly. Writers are people who don't grow up to realize they can't be God.

...those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.

I still retain a bit of a child's focus on things, so we [with my sister] figure if we're going to write books, our best shot is to write children's books, because we relate pretty readily on that level.

And so I write the way I myself would like the book to be – if I were a child. I write for the child within me.

For me, reading books and writing them are tied together. The words of other writers teach me and refresh me and inspire me.

I love being an author. I love actual writing, and I love communicating with children. And it keeps me young.

I genuinely was just such a fan of the books. When I heard that this was on the cards, I've got to do this; I've got to get involved with this. I'm such a Philip Pullman fan and actually his philosophies, morals and the way he looks at the world. He does what he does brilliantly as a writer. He writes children's stories with major adult themes and major ideas about making the right choices.

I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Books are for me, it must be said, the most important thing.

My advice to would-be young authors is to read a lot, write a lot, and not worry about creating a finished product. Keeping a journal is not a bad idea either.

I don't think I'm essentially interested in children's books. I'm interested in writing, and in pictures. I'm interested in people and in children because they are people.

If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.

When I was young, I really identified with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, particularly the character of Jo. The book was written at a time when there weren't as many options for women and girls as there are now. Jo really struggled with that. She wanted to write, to work, to help her family.

You don't have to fight dragons to write books. You just have to live deeply the life you've been given.

I grew up with probably three different authors having a seminal influence on my childhood, Dr. Seuss being one and Maurice Sendak being another. That was my parents, who exposed me to their stories. That's how I was introduced to the whole idea of not just reading, but storytelling in general.

I don't remember ever feeling lonely; in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and their talk far less interesting than the adventures and dialogues I read in my books.

Some people may contend that there is no image more charming that a child holding a puppy or kitten. But for me that's a distant second. When I see a child clutching a book... to his or her tiny bosom, I'm moved. Children can possess a book in a way they can never possess a video game, a TV show, or a Darth Vader doll. A book comes alive when they read it. They give it life themselves by understanding it.

Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include some descriptions of things. I said that I could take photographs and put them in the book. But she said the idea of a book was to describe things using words so that people could read them and make a picture in their own head.

Though not all reading children grow up to be writers, I take it that most creative writers must in their day have been reading children.

An illustrator in my own mind - and this is not a truth of any kind - is someone who so falls in love with writing that he wishes he had written it, and the closest he can get to is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book, which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that's what you hold on to, and that's what you add to the pictures: a whole Other Story that you believe in, that you think is there.

The ideas aren't that important. Really they aren't. Everyone's got an idea for a book, a movie, a story, a TV series.

Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.

My dad read The Hobbit to me originally when I was young. So, it was the first imaginary landscape I ever had in my head from the written word. It gave me a passion for reading, thanks to my dad's performance of the book.