Sonya Hartnett Quotes

If I ever have children of my own, they will read 'Matilda.' They will watch the movie. And you can bet they will see 'Matilda: The Musical.'

Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.

I have a lot of respect and love for children's books.

Every kid has a story to tell!

I am not really much interested in talking to adults, although I suppose practically every mother in the kingdom knows my name and my books. It's their children I love.

I always love writing about children.

Today's youth cannot miss something they have never known, but I fear that there are no current fictional characters whose impact and influence will last with such abiding affection into their 'sore and yellow' as this splendid man's creations have in mine!

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

I think that most of the children's writers live in the world that they've created, and their children are kind of phantoms that wander around the edge of it in the world, but actually the children's writers are the children.

Grandchildren have taught me how important the future is. I try to look through their eyes and envision what's in their imagination. What's the world going to look like when they're my age? That really does take a huge imagination.

Our children's children will hear a good story.

I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.

How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.

If one can judge from the letters that I receive, it would seem that there are many thousands of children who would like me to speak or to read to them.

It's a wonderful thing to write for children.

Children are the keys of paradise.

One of the things I would like to do is make up stories that I would have enjoyed when I was a kid. So, if I'm thinking about an audience, it's usually a younger version of myself.

Our children are the living messages we send to a future we will ever see... Will we rob them of their destiny? Will we rob them of their dreams? No - we will not do that.

I have three kids, so children's literature is a big part of my life.

Writing for children may have kept me young at heart.

When I think about my legacy, I think about the world that we leave behind for our children.

There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.

To write for children at all is an act of faith.

The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.

Fairy tales have always got to have something a bit scary for children - as long as you make them laugh as well.