Katherine Paterson Kids Quotations

Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'

There are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.

If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.

When people ask me what qualifies me to be a writer for children, I say I was once a child. But I was not only a child, I was, better still, a weird little kid, and though I would never choose to give my own children this particular preparation for life, there are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.