Zilpha Quotes & Sayings

Desktop computers - boxes inside boxes - began appearing in those cubicles in the mid-eighties, electrical cords curling on the floor like so many ropes. — Jill Lepore

There are several peculiarities that I share with children which, like having no front teeth, are perhaps more acceptable in the very young, but which, for better or worse, seem to be a part of my makeup. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Belief in mysteries, any manner of mysteries, is the only lasting luxury in life. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The answers aren't important really ... What's important is- knowing all the questions. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I seemed to have been born reading. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I know that throughout my life I have struggled to forgive my father. Now, as I get older, I wish most of all that he had been able to find a way to forgive himself. — Madeleine Thien

When I was a kid, I just read and read. We were lucky enough to have gone to England and had a whole bunch of Penguin Puffins books, like The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, which is hilarious. I would love to be able to write a book like that, but I don't know that I have a humorous bone in my body when it comes to writing. Once on a Time by A.A. Milne. I read a lot of old, old fantasy stuff. The Carbonelbooks by Barbara Sleigh. Then when I got a little older I loved Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I was a big fan of romance and when I got a little bit older I would read a Harlequin romance or a Georgette Heyer novel and then David Copperfield, and then another genre book and then Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy. I was that kind of reader. One book that I loved was I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I loved voice and that book had it in spades. And then of course I grew into loving Jane Eyre. — Franny Billingsley

A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form. It's a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path. This is especially true when it comes to creative pursuits. — Chris Baty

You play because you have a guilty attraction to supernatural beasts and harlequin love stories, but you harbour the secret presumption that you could write them way better yourself. Good. This is your opportunity to prove it. — Avery Alder

Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell ... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

A good start in life is as important to plants as it is to children: they must develop strong roots in a congenial soil, otherwise they will never make the growth that will serve them richly according to their needs in their adult life. — Vita Sackville-West

I'm always happy to talk to somebody; it's flattering that people remember your movies. Especially some movie that you did, for Christ's sake, almost 35 years ago, or what's especially pleasant is if you're talking about some movie that you did 35 years ago and they're 20 years old. — Walter Hill

I chose not to fight it. Eating them ... is my revenge. — J.H. Myn

Teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with ten or eleven years of experience as human beings. It is, I think, a magical time - when so much has been learned, but not yet enough to entirely extinguish the magical reach and freedom of early childhood. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Belonging to a place isn't nearly as necessary as belonging to people you love and who love you and need you. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Trick-or-treating is for candy and demonstrations are for things like Peace and Freedom. It's different. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I love Pittsburgh because it's a humble city. It's really grounded in its rich history and culture. — Kyle Abraham

It is always easier to promote war than peace, easier to end the peace than end the war, because peace is fragile and war is durable. — Mark Kurlansky

I think writing is an extension of a childhood habit - the habit of entertaining oneself by taking interesting bits of reality and building upon them. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

It's time for a recovery and reassessment of North American thinkers. Marshall McLuhan, Leslie Fiedler and Norman O. Brown are the linked triad I would substitute for Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, whose work belongs to ravaged postwar Europe and whose ideas transfer poorly into the Anglo-American tradition. — Camille Paglia

We all invite our own devils, and we must exorcise our own. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

If you try to make your circle closed and exclusively yours, it never grows very much. Only a circle that has lots of room for anybody who needs it has enough spare space to hold any real magic. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Know all the Questions, but not the Answers
Look for the Different, instead of the Same
Never Walk where there's room for Running
Don't do anything that can't be a Game — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

You have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death! — Emily Bronte

There was that special smell made up of paper, ink, and dust; the busy hush; the endless luxury of thousands of unread books. Best of all was the eager itch of anticipation as you went out the door with your arms loaded down with books. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Nothing's real unless you want it to be, and anything can be real if you want it to enough; so real doesn't really mean anything. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

But now and then, beneath the outer numbness, something stirred, like a living pain waiting for the anesthetic to wear away. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

At the age of eight I became, in my own eyes at least, a writer. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

There is no worse death than the end of hope. — Pelagius

Imagination is a great thing in long dull hours, but it's a real curse in a dark alley. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I try to do something physical every day. I don't go heavy every day, though. — Russell Wilson

I'm kind of stupid. — Alexander Siddig

It's such a wonderful feeling to watch a child discover that reading is a marvelous adventure rather than a chore. I know that many writers for children say they do not write specifically with a child audience in mind ... This isn't true for me. I am very aware of my audience. Sometimes I can almost see them out there reacting as I write. Sometimes I think, 'Oh, you're going to like this part. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Eleven is about the best age for almost anything. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

My dear sir," said the sheikh. "God likes catching His servants unprepared. The boy has set down what is obviously the first plate of food he has seen in a long while in order to thank his Creator. There are few acts of piety more honest than that. — G. Willow Wilson