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. Katherine Paterson More Quotes by Katherine Paterson More Quotes From Katherine Paterson Mandarin ducks mate for life and will die of loneliness if separated from their chosen mate. Katherine Paterson matesducksloneliness Youth is a mortal wound. Katherine Paterson woundsyouthmortals I love to read. But I loved to read a lot longer than I started to love writing. Katherine Paterson love-to-readwriting Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader. Katherine Paterson creativereadingimagination 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. Katherine Paterson normaltryingkids I can't believe there will ever be a time when the book is truly obsolete. It is the perfect technology and feeds the soul. Katherine Paterson technologybelievebook On Decoration Day, while everyone else in town was at the cemetery decorating the graves of our Glorious War Dead, Willie Beaner and me, Robert Burns Hewitt, took Mabel Cramm's bloomers and run them up the flagpole in front of the town hall. That was the beginning of all my troubles. Katherine Paterson townsrunningwar If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven? Katherine Paterson imagineimaginationheaven The world that is in me is the only world I have by which to grasp the world outside and as I write fiction, it is the chart by which I must steer. Katherine Paterson writingfictionworld Death is very mysterious to us. One moment someone is there with us, and the next moment they're not. Katherine Paterson mysteriousnextmoments Read for fun, read for information, read in order to understand yourself and other people with quite different ideas. Learn about the world beyond your door. Learn to be compassionate and grow in wisdom. Books can help us in all these ways. Katherine Paterson doorsfunbook A dream without a plan is just a wish Katherine Paterson planswishdream I guess real maturity, which most of us never achieve, is when you realize that you're not the center of the universe. Katherine Paterson achievematurityreal He may not have been born with guts, but he didn't have to die without them. Katherine Paterson gutsbornmay Church always seemed the same. Jess could tune it out the same way he tuned out school, with his body standing up and sitting down in unison with the rest of the congregation but his mind numb and floating, not really thinking or dreaming but at least free. Katherine Paterson dreamschoolthinking Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits. Katherine Paterson pufflittleslife Sitting in cold wet britches for an hour was no fun even in a magic kingdom. Katherine Paterson magic-kingdomsittingfun That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them. Katherine Paterson homebelieveschool She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there--like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone. Katherine Paterson moonselfhome Impressed. Lord. He had nearly drowned. Katherine Paterson impressedlord
