Top 100 Books For Children Quotes
#1. My name is Jarrett Krosoczka, and I write and illustrate books for children for a living. So I use my imagination as my full-time job.
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
#2. I have so little patience with the whole Y.A. book thing. As far as I'm concerned, you either read books for children or you read books for adults.
Richard K. Morgan
#3. Had I not had children of my own, I would have never written books for children, nor would I have been capable of doing so.
Roald Dahl
#4. I cannot think of any work that could be more agreeable and fun than making books for children.
Arnold Lobel
#5. I prefer to write books for children instead of reading them. But I do strongly believe in childhood and in respecting childhood innocence. I don't like books for children that deal with adult themes.
Philip Kerr
#6. I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.
Enid Blyton
#7. I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children.
Eleanor Catton
#8. In our time, when the literature for adults is deteriorating, good books for children are the only hope, the only refuge.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
#9. I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.
Mark Haddon
#10. Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should therefore be accorded the same respect.
Mark Haddon
#11. I'm interested in illustration in all its forms. Not only in books for children but in posters, prints and performance as a way of drawing people into books and stories.
Chris Riddell
#12. I have always loved reading books for children and young adults, particularly when those books are mysteries.
Eleanor Catton
#13. Authors ... keep writing those great books for children and teens. It's a proven fact that those children & teens who read are less depressed than those who don't.
Timothy Pina
#14. I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.
Maurice Sendak
#15. I love those adult writers with the pranking ethos, [Don] DeLillo and [Donald] Barthelme and David Foster Wallace. I don't see any reason not to bring those kinds of influences to bear on books for children.
Mac Barnett
#16. I love making books for children. Big kids, little kids, old kids and new.
Tony DiTerlizzi
#17. Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.
Dr. Seuss
#18. I have more than 100 legal pads filled with handwriting. Eight novels, two books for children, countless stories and essays.
Susan Straight
#19. I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.
Gene Wolfe
#20. 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
#21. Be the hero of your children's story. Never let them believe for a minute that honor, courage and doing what is right is only reserved for other fathers and mothers.
Shannon L. Alder
#22. We do what we must to earn our place in the community, but we live for the hours at home. For each other, for the children. It will never get me written up in the history books.
Orson Scott Card
#23. For some reason, when people meet me and find out I'm a writer they always ask if I write children's books. Um ... please don't let your kids read my books. Well, unless your kids are in their 30s or something ... then yeah, they're old enough. LOL
Michelle M. Pillow
#24. Adult novels are as ephemeral as newspapers. Children's books stay in print for decades.
Sid Fleischman
#25. I grew up reading 19th-century novels and late Victorian children's books, so I try for a good story full of coincidence and error, landscape and weather. However, the world was radically changed during my lifetime, and I tell of that battering as best I can.
Fanny Howe
#26. The illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see, and because of that, they are incredibly important. What we see and share at that age stays with us for life.
Anthony Browne
#27. For are we not, all of us, wand'rers and strangers; and do we not, all of us, travel in danger or voyage uncharted seas?
Joan W. Blos
#28. Some children were lucky enough to have their Potter novels banned by witch-hunting school boards and micromanaging ministers. Is there any greater job than a book you're not allowed to read, a book you could go to hell for reading?
Ann Patchett
#29. So much for the right books; the right use of them is another matter. The children must enjoy the book. The ideas it holds must each make that sudden, delightful impact upon their minds, must cause that intellectual stir, which mark the inception of an idea.
Charlotte Mason
#30. I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them.
Rick Riordan
#31. And yet the irony was that she soon placed herself in the margins voluntarily, giving up work for family, because she imagined that when she eventually arrived at her deathbed, she would feel more regret about unborn children than unwritten books.
Matt Haig
#32. It's a sort of patronizing idea that literature for children has to feature role models of exemplary behavior. I think not only is that bogus, but it leads to really boring books.
Mac Barnett
#33. I was a very quiet child, quite introverted, really. Independent, yes; I didn't need a lot of supervision. Less so than I did when I got older, maybe. But I was a bookish child, not surprisingly. I could sit quite happily in a corner for hours and entertain myself with books.
John Boyne
#34. Very young children eat their books, literally devouring their contents. This is one reason for the scarcity of first editions of Alice in Wonderland and other favorites of the nursery.
A. S. W. Rosenbach
#35. I have thought you could not give everything to your books and also to your children, so for a long time, I thought if I had a child or a family, I'd think, 'How would I support them?' because basically I would stop writing.
Sonya Hartnett
#36. A male frigate bird blows up a wild red pouch on his neck. He can keep it puffed up for hours. It is his way of impressing the girls.
Julie Murphy
#37. [My] Books are like puppies and children: you love each one for different reasons. I don't actually have a favorite because, if I were honest, I'm always more excited about what is coming.
Nikki Giovanni
#38. It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.
R.L. Stine
#39. One reason nearly half my books are for children is the glorious fact that the minds of children are still open to the living word; in the child, nightside and sunside are not yet separated; fantasy contains truths which cannot be stated in terms of proof.
Madeleine L'Engle
#40. I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.
Al Yankovic
#41. Another hero was Tom Swift, in the books. What he stood for, the freedom, the scientific knowledge and being and engineer gave him the ability to invent solutions to problems. He's always been a hero to me. I buy old Tom Swift books now and read them to my own children.
Steve Wozniak
#42. If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs.
Greg Mortenson
#43. For me, a good children's book is a good children's book is a good children's book.
LeVar Burton
#44. Not every child takes instantly to books like a duck to water, but I don't believe there are children who hate books. There are just children who haven't yet found the right books for them.
Amanda Craig
#45. I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children ... do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is the gateway drug to other books you may prefer.
Neil Gaiman
#46. As a child, I felt that books were holy objects, to be caressed, rapturously sniffed, and devotedly provided for. I gave my life to them. I still do. I continue to do what I did as a child; dream of books, make books and collect books.
Maurice Sendak
#47. Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child ... Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.
Orson Scott Card
#49. On the other side of the curtain, children were squabbling, a baby was crying, and there was the smell of rat-and-cabbage casserole. Someone was sharpening an axe. And someone else was snoring. For a dwarf in Ankh-Morpork, solitude was something that you had to cultivate on the inside. Books
Terry Pratchett
#50. I turn back to the Archers, who don't look like the same species as us. Do they even sweat, these people?
Denis Markell
#51. The thing is, 'Discworld' had been going on for a very long time, and I've written children's books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I'd do is I'd franchise it to myself.
Terry Pratchett
#52. I've never written a children's book, but when people meet me for the first time and I say I write books, they invariably reply, 'Children's books?' Maybe it's something about my face.
Sophie Kinsella
#53. I have the impression that our children are much more excited about going to school than children in other countries are. They think of it as a special privilege. Going to school, being with other children, getting books and pencils - all of that is like a dream for them.
Cheryl Benard
#54. Ole Golly: You know what? You're an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it's gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.
Louise Fitzhugh
#55. If you take 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' as books, one is written for children, and one is an adult's book.
Peter Jackson
#56. By fire, fever, storm and sword, your blood shall suffer this bane. No peace or joy for Wintersloe's lord, till the puzzle ring is whole again
Kate Forsyth
#57. It would be hard for me to overestimate the importance of reading. Nothing can expand the mind and heart like the magic al world of books. ... Our libraries are an essential resource for our children, our communities, and our future.
Danielle Steel
#58. The trouble with most problem-solving books for parents is that they start with the idea that the child has a problem. Then they try to tell us how to fix the child, or else, after blaming the parent, they suggest how we can fix ourselves.
Polly Berrien Berends
#59. This is the value for me of writing books that children read. Children aren't interested in your appalling self-consciousness. They want to know what happens next. They force you to tell a story.
Philip Pullman
#60. I actually started an adult book, worked on it for about two years, and then decided it just wasn't coming together for me, and thought I'll go back to children's books, and almost immediately I started 'Holes,' and it just seemed to take off on me.
Louis Sachar
#61. Jade blinked. It was only for a fraction of a second but she could have sworn the the house had changed shape.
Richard J. Ward
#62. Roaring is never a voice for indoors. Roaring sounds better when done outdoors!
Lorraine Loria
#63. I feel an author and an illustrator weave the magic of a children's picture book together.
Sima Mittal
#64. I resisted children's writing for a long time. I saw myself as a writer of literary fiction. But I had so much more fun writing kids' books.
Ellen Potter
#65. What the future held for her she didn't know. Of two things only she was certain. There would be children-her own or other people's-and there would be books.
Alice Dalgliesh
#66. Life isn't so complicated for children. They have more time to think about the really important things. That's why I occasionally moralise in my children's books in a way I wouldn't dare when writing for adults.
Nina Bawden
#67. Normal people bring children into the world; we novelists bring books. We are condemned to put our whole lives into them, even though they hardly ever thank us for it. We are condemned to die in their pages and sometimes even to let our books be the ones who, in the end, will take our lives.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#68. For what use is it to forbid what we can't prevent? If books are forbidden, children read them on the sly.
Andre Gide
#69. With a few exceptions, the critics of children's books are remarkably lenient souls ... Most of us assume there is something goodin every child; the critics go from this to assume there is something good in every book written for a child. It is not a sound theory.
Katharine Sergeant Angell White
#70. A nice thing about children's books, though I'm probably alone in this opinion among other people who write and publish them, is that they did get to be in this unrecognized ghetto for a long time.
Daniel Handler
#71. Writing books for me is anyway much like a military campaign. I confess to fighting my way through with military metaphors. There is a strategy, an overall concept, and there are tactics along the way ... Tradition would say I was a 'child of Mars.'
James Hillman
#72. I don't think it's a coincidence that comic books appeal so strongly to children. Not that it negates any of their power for adults, but there is something about comics that makes them a perfect storytelling system for children.
Seth
#73. I think there is something barbaric in children, and it's missing in lots of books for them because we don't like to think of it. We want them to be happy [but] childhood is a very tough time.
Maurice Sendak
#74. I must confess that although I am quite passionate about the books I create for children, I am not the best oral storyteller. In fact, I stink at it.
Tony DiTerlizzi
#75. I think that books for young people should have serious and important themes, they shouldn't be trivial. So the books I write, they would be the kind of stories you would write in an adult novel only they just happen to feature a child at the center of them.
John Boyne
#76. I didn't write with a target audience in mind. What excited me was how much I would enjoy writing about Harry. I never thought about writing for children - children's books chose me. I think if it is a good book anyone will read it.
J.K. Rowling
#77. There is a very big difference between writing for children and writing for young adults. The first thing I would say is that 'Young Adult' does not mean 'Older Children', it really does mean young but adult, and the category should be seen as a subset of adult literature, not of children's books.
Garth Nix
#78. I've illustrated many children's books and I feel awfully lucky to be able to do something I love so much, and yes, to be able to pay the rent, but there was a yearning to do something more grown up, and something where I didn't have to cater to anyone; I was just waiting for the material.
Sophie Blackall
#79. The books we enjoy as children stay with us forever
they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work.
Sid Fleischman
#80. Want to inspire your kids to read more? Try giving them kids some money to spend just on a book. Take them to a bookstore and let them browse and pick out one book that they will love. Or try going to a local library for a few hours and just let your kids sift through books that interest them.
Melanie Kirk
#81. Books are like ice cream; there is a flavor for everyone!
K. Lamb
#82. The secret of keeping young is to read children's books. You read the books they write for little children and you'll keep young. You read novels, philosophy, stuff like that and it makes you feel old.
John Cheever
#83. Reading the Fillory books you would think that all one has to do is behave honorably and bravely and all will be well. What a lesson to teach young children. What a way to prepare them for the rest of their lives.
Lev Grossman
#84. Regarding children's literature, look for interesting content and well-constructed sentences clothed in literary language. The imagination should be warmed and the book should hold the interest of the child. Life's too short to spend time with books that bore us.
Deborah Taylor-Hough
#85. To the children who loved Harry Potter, I want to say your enthusiasm was the real magic. I so enjoyed being on the journey with you. And to the adults who bought the Harry Potter books and devoured them, I just want to say, those books were for children.
Daniel Radcliffe
#86. Your words are unique to you.
A God given gift of thoughts and ideas that only you can share with the world. Share on! There is room on these shelves for your book!
B.Villareal 2014
Becky Villareal
#87. I have not the courage to search through books for beautiful prayers ... Unable either to say them all or choose between them, I do as a child would do who cannot read-I say just what I want to say to God, quite simply, and he never fails to understand.
Therese Of Lisieux
#88. Kaylee giggled as he tunneled up inside her sleeve.
Out popped his head for a quick look, then he took leave.
He enjoyed scaling up, down and around her shirt.
What a sweet, funny and adorable flirt.
Melinda K. Trotter
#89. I have a very low tolerance for boredom and often think I would have missed out on books entirely if I'd grown up in the Internet and video game age. Now I enjoy books for people of all ages, including children.
Rick Yancey
#90. I write for children because I am interested in fantasy and the possibilities for experience of all kinds before the time of compromise. I believe that children are far more perceptive and wise than American books give them credit for being.
Natalie Babbitt
#91. If you write a kid's book only for kids, then you have failed.
Don Roff
#92. Childhood is the time and children's books are the place for powerful emotions, powerful language, powerful art ... There is no room for cutesy books, dull books, or books that talk down. Children are not inferior. They may be small in stature but not in what they feel, think, listen, and see.
Betsy Hearne
#93. I had been writing comic books for years and I was doing them to please a publisher, who felt that comics are only read by very young children or stupid adults. And therefore, we have to keep the stories very simplistic. And that was the thing I hated.
Stan Lee
#94. For some reason, I never felt the need to have kids. My wife feels the same. We don't feel a void. I don't think they would give my life meaning. I do think of the books as my children, though. Whatever is inside of me, I put into my books.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#95. You'll notice that my books offer great variety. Some are for adults, some for children and some for teens. There are mysteries, historical novels, picture books, love stories and stories of crisis and courage.
Sonia Levitin
#96. One of my main decisions when accepting the job of Children's Laureate was that I must continue working on picture books. If I don't write and illustrate for some time, then I begin to question who I am.
Anthony Browne
#97. We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun.
Jackie French
#98. I will always respect the beliefs of fellow Christians who aren't comfortable reading or writing explicit love scenes, but I believe romances are beautiful and spiritual books that celebrate the best of what love has to offer and mirror the love God has for his children.
Teresa Medeiros
#99. I'd seen the older children in class look into books for invisible traces, as if they were driven by the same force and, sinking deeper into silence, they were able to draw from the dead paper something that seemed alive.
Muriel Barbery
#100. On this International Day for the Abolition of Slavery let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts to build societies in which slavery truly is a term for the history books.
Ban Ki-moon
