Joanna Coles Quotes

Sex is great until you die, but it's never as great as it was when you were a kid, when it was a mystery.

Dig into life with wild roving abandon, opening your mind to the delicious possibilities that perplex the mind, entice the heart, and excite the spirit.

We never had books at home, but my dad, seeing how keen I was to read, took me to Islington Library when I was about eight and we pulled out two - a Biggles and a science fiction novel. I never got the ace fighter pilot but fell in love with all things to do with the future and space. Isaac Asimov soon became my guiding star.

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film.

An interest in ideas is a sign of human life. People are fascinated by what the future is going to be - and the future is going to be an accumulation of ideas.

The challenge of the unknown future is so much more exciting than the stories of the accomplished past.

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.

In an ideal world, 'Doctor Who' makes the whole nation eight years old, with that excitement and engagement and wide-eyedness.

I understood right from the start that every set of library doors were the sort of magic portals that lead to other lands. My God, right within reach there were dinosaurs and planets and presidents and girl detectives!

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

When you're a little kid, you are small, your life is small - and you're terrifically aware of that. But when you read, you can ride Arabian horses across the desert, you can be a dogsledder.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

I've always been inspired by small details that make me wander. My mother would ask me, 'What are you looking at so intensely?' I would answer, 'Everything and nothing.' She really supported my wanderings, called me Marco Polo.

I can remember being eight, and I like writing about that age of innocence when children still have a sense of wonder.

I love the unknown. I love the discovery of what will be happening and just kind of sitting back and not knowing.

If there were no mystery left to explore life would get rather dull, wouldn't it?

My children just want to get at the world; it is so pleasantly surprising to witness that.

Some things, I think, like fairy books and secret doors, are only meant to be found by children.

I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to.

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.

I'm passionate about learning. I'm passionate about life.

I think at any age, you can stay open and creative and excited.

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Yeah, I think speculation keeps things really interesting.