John Sladek Quotes

I was always looking ahead. I used to do all kinds of things for entertainment. When I was young, we had no radio, no TV. We were 30 miles from the public library, out in the sticks in Western Kansas, and so I'd do arithmetic exercises.

I loved 'Dungeons & Dragons'. That was actually a good cartoon to me.

I'm shy and can't for the life of me barge around and slap people on the back. I sit in a corner by myself and am tickled to death when someone comes over to talk to me.

When I was a kid, we had to rely on our imaginations for entertainment.

I was a shy, quiet kid. I was happiest playing by myself with my toys, rather than hanging around people.

This was the 1940s; there was no television. It was a different age - it was not swamped by media; it was swamped by reality, and storytelling was a very big art where I came from.

I was a shy little girl. Growing up, I was often content being alone in my room, making up stories, and acting out all the parts. I became so good at it that, with the door closed, my parents thought I had friends over.

As an introverted kid who lived in the middle of nowhere, my stories made up the whole of my social life. That meant that while other kids cultivated hobbies like skateboarding or playing the piano, I sat at home scribbling in notebooks.

I was an imaginative kid. My sister needed entertaining, whereas I was the one under the table playing with a bit of fluff on the carpet. I was the sort of child who would spend time rolling up balls of all different kinds of fluff and that would be my little family.

I was the shiest person you could think of. I didn't really speak. I was an only child, so most of my life I spent in my bedroom playing with toys by myself, speaking through them.

I leapt eagerly into books. The characters’ lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own.

We've all been disappointed by new installments of the stories we love. But with all this talk of filmmakers 'ruining our childhood,' we forget that right now is someone else's childhood. This is their time. And I have to build something that can take them to the same place those earlier films took us.

I read a lot growing up. It was kind of my comfort, you know; I loved it. I love story. I love narrative. I was academic. I wasn't particularly athletic. I didn't make the drill team. I didn't go out for sports.

I loved movies, growing up. They brought me so much joy.

I don't get as much female attention as you'd think, because I never go out.

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

My family were symphonic musicians and in the opera. Also, it was my era, the love of radio. We used to listen to the radio at night, close our eyes and see movies far more beautiful than you can photograph.

As a human being, you know that there are some days when you'd rather not talk to anybody - but I can't really do that anymore without appearing rude.

I was always the kid at the side of the playground, looking at the other kids. I didn't know how to get into the group. I was quiet and bookish, a bit of a geek. I was into orienteering when my friends were out clubbing.

I was an awkward kid.

When I play games, I'll make up little stories for just anything. It's almost the game of making up background stories for people you see on the street. You know what I mean? I wasn't exactly the popular kid in school growing up, so I found myself really observing people, and watching how they interact, and how they react to things.

I think to be writer you have to enjoy being alone. I was a loner as a teenager and was always drawn to characters in books and films who were at the fringes.

My earliest memory is learning to read 'Muffin the Mule' when I was about three.

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of toys, and personal entertainment depended on individual ingenuity and imagination - think up a story and go live it for an afternoon.

I was a shy kid with a broom handle that I pretended was a microphone.