It seems to me that there are two great enemies of peace - fear and selfishness. Katherine Paterson More Quotes by Katherine Paterson More Quotes From Katherine Paterson Impressed. Lord. He had nearly drowned. Katherine Paterson impressedlord Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed. Katherine Paterson scaredfearmay . . . Jess believed, that she thought he was the best. It was not the kind of best that counted either at school or at home, but it was a genuine kind of best. He kept the knowledge of it buried inside himself like a pirate treasure. He was rich, very rich, but no one could know about it for now except his fellow outlaw, Julia Edmunds. Katherine Paterson piratehomeschool The challenge for those of us who care about our faith and about a hurting world is to tell stories which will carry the words of grace and hope in their bones and sinews and not wear them like fancy dress. Katherine Paterson gracehurtchallenges Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it. Katherine Paterson doctorsgivingwater The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before. Katherine Paterson realbookpeople We all learn here by the honorable path of horrible mistakes. Katherine Paterson honorablepathmistake We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words, which can only be hinted at through the means of a story. And somehow, miraculously, a story that comes from deep in my heart calls from a reader that which is deepest in his or her heart, and together from our secret hidden selves we create a story that neither of us could have told alone. Katherine Paterson heartmeanlying ...I just gave up trying to be a Christian... Let's face it, I ain't got the knack for holiness. Besides, I didn't have the slightest little desire to join the likes of Reverend Pelham at the dinner table for fourteen minutes, much less at the banquet table of Heaven eternally. Eternity is a mighty long time to be stuck with people who judge every word you say and think and condemn most of what you do. It struck me as pretty miserable company. And if Reverend Pelham was the kind of company God preferred to keep, well, I just hoped they'd be happy together. Katherine Paterson judgingchristianthinking It's like the smarter you are, the more things can scare you. Katherine Paterson smarterscare I was behaving, just like I promised, but fate intervened. Katherine Paterson fate Trouble can always be borne when it is shared. Katherine Paterson coachingtrouble I love revisions...We can't go back and revise our lives, but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest. Katherine Paterson revisionour-liveswriting Punch after punch after punch. February is a mean bully. Nothing could be worse - except August. Katherine Paterson bullyaugustmean All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us. Katherine Paterson takenbookchildren Still, I kept writing. I had no guarantee that I would someday win awards for writing. Heavens, the only person during that time who seemed to think I could write something worth publishing was my loyal husband. But I always remembered the professor from graduate school who urged me to write and who recommended me for that first writing assignment in 1964. When I protested to Sara Little that I didn't want to add another mediocre writer to the world, she gently reminded me that if I didn't dare mediocrity, I would never write anything at all. Katherine Paterson husbandwritingschool I cannot, will not, withhold from my young readers the harsh realities of human hunger and suffering and loss, but neither will I neglect to plant that stubborn seed of hope that has enabled our race to outlast wars and famines and the destruction of death. Katherine Paterson losswarreality life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough Katherine Paterson supposed-to-betough February is just plain malicious. It knows your defenses are down. Katherine Paterson maliciousfebruarydefense ...One reason I became a writer was that I figured out that if you call yourself a writer, you can read all you want and people think that you are working. Katherine Paterson wantpeoplethinking
