Newbery Quotes & Sayings

Children's books: Every time you find the right, the necessary, book for a child - a book about sadness overcome, unfairness battled, hearts mended - you perform the best kind of magic ... every time you give just the right book to just the right child, you're saying, "You, my friend, have potential." That is a gift. That is a miracle. And that is what you do, each of you, every single day. — Katherine Applegate

Reading is important.
Books are important.
Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.) — Neil Gaiman

I was ready to leave with every load, with every worthy individual of respectable appearance hiring a cab; but absolutely nobody invited me, not one; it was as if they had forgotten me, as if I was actually something alien to them! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Obviously, until you write Fuck It, We're All Going To Die, the Newbery Medal is still going to go to people like me. — Neil Gaiman

Fuckin' A ... hope didn't so much spring eternal as it drowned out common sense and self-preservation. — J.R. Ward

Once 'Walk Two Moons' received the Newbery Medal, I decided to write full-time. Partly because there seemed to be an audience out there who wanted to read what I wanted to write, and partly because I could now support myself financially through writing. — Sharon Creech

I've got to believe I'm the first person to win the Newbery who has written a Harlequin romance! — K.A. Applegate

When I type a title page, I hold it and I look at it and I think, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and I'll have a book. — Betsy Byars

Holly is the bestselling author and co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles series and won a Newbery Honor for her novel Doll Bones. Cassie is the author of bestselling YA series, including The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. They both live in Western Massachusetts, about ten minutes away from each other. — Holly Black

Big Ma didn't need to say any more and she didn't. T.J. was far from her favorite person and it was quite obvious that Stacey and I owed our good fortune entirely to T.J.'s obnoxious personality. — Mildred D. Taylor

The three adventurers were overcome by that delicious weariness which suddenly overtakes one at the end of an outdoor day. — Carol Ryrie Brink

I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road. — Linda Sue Park

We agree. Certainly the rate of change of nearly everything over the past few decades has accelerated greatly. The kinds of work and the nature of the problems that designers work on have shifted as a result. We find it useful to look further back than the past few decades to understand what has led up to the situation today and why this recent increase in the frequency of change is so important for what business and design do together in the future. — Patrick Newbery

I gather you weren't keen on going back to Scotland with your brother at this time of year. I don't say I blame you. Terribly bleak and cutoff in the winter."
"Oh no, Mom," I said, as her words sunk in. "My brother is not going back to Scotland. He and my sister-in-law are going to the Riviera."
The Riviera? I had no idea."
"For my sister-in-law's health. She's feeling rather frail at the moment."
"I don't think that frail would ever be a word to describe your sister-in-law," the Queen said, looking up with a half smile on her lips as a tray of coffee was reeled into the room.
"I managed to have six children without making a fuss. One just got on with it. — Rhys Bowen

'Weedflower' was already in the copyediting phase when I heard about the Newbery award, so it didn't really influence my writing of that book, but since then, I have become more aware of having an audience. — Cynthia Kadohata

It was as if some people believed there was a divide between the books that you were permitted to enjoy and the books that were good for you, and I was expected to choose sides. We were all expected to choose sides. And I didn't believe it, and I still don't.
I was, and still am, on the side of books you love. — Neil Gaiman

I met Shannon Hale through some friends and family. I was interested in her book called Princess Academy, which is just a very sweet, Newbery-nominated fairy tale for young readers. She was like, "Oh, actually I have something else for you." She gave me Austenland. The next morning, I'm sure I called her and I was like, "Let's make this movie." It is so fun. It just felt so girly and great and a great vehicle for the weird Hess comedy. — Jerusha Hess

Museum Work and Museum Problems" course, the first academic program specifically designed to cultivate and train men and women to become museum directors and curators. In addition to the connoisseurship of art, the "Museum Course" taught the financial and administrative aspects of running a museum, with a focus on eliciting donations. The students met regularly with major art collectors, bankers, and America's social elite, often at elegant dinners where they were required to wear formal dress and observe the social protocol of high culture. By 1941, Sachs's students had begun to fill the leadership positions of American museums, a field they would come to dominate in the postwar years. — Robert M. Edsel

It's not irrelevant, those moments of connection, those places where fiction saves your life. It's the most important thing there is. — Neil Gaiman

I try not to handle the foreign subjects with my English techniques and preconceptions, but to paint Sydney in Sydney and Tangier in Tangier. — John Newbery

Stories. They're everywhere ... You never know where they start and you certainly don't know where they'll end. If they ever DO end. (Nevermore) — Linda Newbery

LOUIS SACHAR is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Holes, winner of the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Christopher Award. He is also the author of Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake; Small Steps, winner of the Schneider Family Book Award; and The Cardturner, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, a Parents' Choice Gold Award recipient, and an ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults book. His books for younger readers include There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, The Boy Who Lost His Face, Dogs Don't Tell Jokes, and the Marvin Redpost series, among many others. — Louis Sachar

One thing you cannot control is nature. — Diana Ross

My wife and I really enjoy a glass of red wine. We're too old to drink cheap wine, and we don't. — Paul Henderson

You know, I'm normally so sanguine. But ... being accused of rushing these two books out to cash in on the Newbery Medal, without access to time travel equipment or anything, just makes me want to bang my forehead gently against a tree for half an hour. Is it too much to ask people to think? — Neil Gaiman

After I won the Newbery Medal for 'From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,' children all over the world let me know that they liked books that take them to unusual places where they meet unusual people. — E.L. Konigsburg

We do not have too much pain in this life, we have too little... Because through pain we arrive at God. We are death, dust, ashes... how should we complain? — Georg Buchner

but if you get a chance to be the baddest and strongest, always be the baddest and strongest. — Richelle Mead

'Dear Mr. Henshaw' came about because two different boys from different parts of the country asked me to write a book about a boy whose parents were divorced, and so I wrote 'Dear Mr. Henshaw,' and it won the Newbery, and I was - it's been very popular. — Beverly Cleary

I'm afraid your literary prizes don't give you any jurisdiction in this particular instance, sir. — Lizzie K. Foley

If you work outdoors be passive, go with the weather. This may mean two hours sheltering from a downpour, followed by a wonderful burst of sunlight and a rainbow. — John Newbery

My technique, starting with a quick outline in pencil, is designed to record first impressions, with no time for second thoughts. — John Newbery