Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I've read so often that I've internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.

'Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case,' 'The Secret of the Old Clock,' 'Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret,' 'Flowers in the Attic,' 'Gone With the Wind' - these are the books that defined my childhood. They thrilled me. They made me feel like I wasn't alone in the world.

When I was a kid, I loved 'Little Women.'

On the day long after childhood when I suddenly heard of his death, the sky grew dark above my head. I was walking on a Southern highway, and a friend driving in a pony carriage passed me, stopped and said, "Have you heard that Charles Dickens is dead?" It was as if I had been robbed of one of my dearest friends.

For the record, I have long suspected that my favorite book is actually 'Charlotte's Web.'

There isn't a book that has changed me, but I have favourites such as 'Pride and Prejudice' which I often re-read.

'Black Beauty,' by Anna Sewell, remains a star-dusted memory because my mom read it aloud to my sister and me at night for months. I was no more than 7.

Many of the books I loved as a kid, that even my mother read as a child, are very slow going. Today's children are not as patient. The best example of this is 'The Secret Garden,' which I adored as a child.

My father gave me Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' when I was in junior high; my junior high, angst-filled soul responded to that.

Ultimately, Lloyd Alexander's tales of Prydain were enough to make me come back and visit again and again, and each time, I laughed and I wept. Each time. No exceptions.

When I was 18, I couldn't wait to move away. I was like: 'If I ever have to come back here, I'll kill myself.' Glasgow seemed like failure and death to me back then, but not any more.

When I was nine, 'The Borrowers' was such a big series for me!

When I was in my 20s in the 1970s, I read all of Jean Rhys. I have reread very little since because the first impressions were so powerful they have stayed with me.

'Lord of the Flies' is one of my favorite books. That was a big influence on me as a teenager; I still read it every couple of years.

I grew up reading 'The Jungle Books' and loving them.

Reading was such a formative part of my childhood (along with 'Loony Tunes'), that it is difficult to pin point the most influential book. But, under an interrogation light I would probably have to say 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte.

Like every child growing up in America, I read 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn.' I liked them well enough, but I didn't love them.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

I still hold on to the idea that a record can really change the way I feel.

When my younger son was 13 years old, he asked me to read 'Swallows and Amazons' to him while he made models. He liked it so much that I ended up reading all thirteen of Ransome's books, including the ones that I missed out on. This led my son to 'Treasure Island,' 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Coral Island.'

I was so inspired by Beverly Cleary's funny and wonderful books.

One of the books I remember reading when I was young and always thought would be a great role to play is Catherine in 'Wuthering Heights.' I like the classics.

I feel like I am walking in some amazing footsteps of writers who have come before me, like S.E. Hinton, Walter Dean Myers, Christopher Paul Curtis, Richard Peck and Kate DiCamillo, who I love.

As I kid, I read the 'Little House on the Prairie' series and was sad when I got to the last book.

I always cry when Mufasa dies in 'The Lion King.' I just can't handle it.