Chinua Achebe Quotes

So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.

With the adult ones, I feel I need to get as deep inside the psychology of a character as I can, and that needs to be first-person. In the children's books, I feel I need some distance. I don't want to be the nine-year-old at the center of the story. I need to have some type of narrative voice.

If you are writing children's books, you need to be a ruthless killer.

You make learning fun. Like a children’s book or after school special. Tell me about your…um, Athenian women.

This is the value for me of writing books that children read. Children aren't interested in your appalling self-consciousness. They want to know what happens next. They force you to tell a story.

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.

What should a good children’s book be like? If you ask me, I can tell you after thinking long and hard: It must be good.

I love picture books. I think some of the best people in children's books are the ones who create their own picture books. I wish I could say I'm one of them, but I'm not.

I think that books for young people should have serious and important themes, they shouldn't be trivial. So the books I write, they would be the kind of stories you would write in an adult novel only they just happen to feature a child at the center of them.

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?

There really is no difference in the actual writing or plotting. I choose to tell different stories for the younger reader and, of course, I would never put sex and extreme violence in a YA book. But writing for adults and children requires the same care and attention.

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.

The books we enjoy as children stay with us forever -- they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work.

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

Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight.

There's a great place for good Christian children's books. After the upcoming projects I'm working on, I'd like to turn my attention back to children's books. Maybe with a granddaughter I'll have more inspiration and new ideas.

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.

I don't know how to write a children's book.

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.

You may be surprised to know that growing up, I wanted to be a writer of children's books.

Most of the books I read these days are children's books at bedtime.

For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole. For grownups: I'm writing poems.

When I was little I used to wish I could talk to the illustrators because I wanted to discuss something about the books. With so many of the other art forms that children experience, such as movies and television, they don't get to control the pace.

If I revise a children's book, if I'm spending three hours on the first draft, I'm probably spending 30 minutes revising it. I mean, come on! But to redo a painting? That's hard work.

That movie [A Series of Unfortunate Events] told four books in two hours, and we have two hours per book. So we have eight hours to tell four books, and if people watch we'll get to tell more of them. There's only thirteen books, so there's only going to be two more seasons, but that allows for a lot of time to be in character and to maintain character.