Children's Literature Quotes:

A Wasn’t just isn't. He just isn't present. But you… You ARE YOU! And, now isn't that pleasant!

- Dr. Seuss

source: Theodor Seuss Geisel, “Happy Birthday To You!”

topic: Pleasant, Children's Literature

There is no such thing as children’s literature.

- N. V. M. Gonzalez

topic: Children, Literature, Children's Literature

Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

topic: Children, Adults, Literature, Children's Literature

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

- Roald Dahl

source: Roald Dahl (2017). “Billy and the Minpins (illustrated by Quentin Blake)”, p.77, Penguin UK

topic: Inspirational, Life, Believe, Inspirational Children, Magical Places

The great subversive works of children's literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.

- Alison Lurie

topic: Children, Views, Shopping, Children's Literature, Rebellious Child

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

- Roald Dahl

source: Roald Dahl (2007). “James and the Giant Peach”, p.151, Penguin

topic: Life, Happiness, Beauty, Always Happy, Good Thoughts

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.

- A. A. Milne

topic: Love, Friendship, Positive, Tigger, Bff

Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.

- Bernard Baruch

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Life, Way In Life, Trying To Fit In

I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.

- Louisa May Alcott

source: J. M. Barrie, Charles Dickens, Johanna Spyri, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum (2015). “Greatest Christmas Novels in One Volume: Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Heidi, The Romance of a Christmas Card, The Little City of Hope, The Wonderful Life, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Peter Pan…”, p.1082, e-artnow

topic: Inspirational, Confidence, Wisdom, Storms Of Life, Tall Ships

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

source: Le Petit Prince ch. 21 (1943)

topic: Love, Life, Determination, Great Marriage, Inspirational Children

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.

- E. B. White

topic: Friendship, Change, Wisdom, Children's Books, Charlotte's Web

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

- Lewis Carroll

source: Through the Looking-Glass ch. 5 (1872)

topic: Ignorance, Six, Breakfast, Impossible Dream, Favourite Book

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

- Margery Williams

source: Margery Williams, Margery Williams Bianco (2011). “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Became Real”, p.14, Marshall Cavendish

topic: Real, Eye, Hair, Children's Books, Children's Literature

...those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.

- Katherine Paterson

topic: Children, Writing, Children's Literature

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

- Frances Hodgson Burnett

topic: Forever, World, Strange, Strange Things, Children's Literature

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

- Roald Dahl

source: Roald Dahl (2007). “James and the Giant Peach”, p.151, Penguin

topic: Beauty, Uplifting, Teacher, Good Thoughts, Sunbeams

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and - SNAP - the job's a game!

- Julie Andrews

source: Song: A Spoonful of Sugar

topic: Teacher, Jobs, Fun, Children's Literature, Children Literature

Some days are like that. Even in Australia.

- Judith Viorst

topic: Australia, Children's Literature, Children Literature, Classic Book

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.

- James M. Barrie

source: James M. Barrie (2013). “The Little White Bird (Annotated Edition)”, p.85, Jazzybee Verlag

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Inspiring, Improve Self Esteem, Self-doubt

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

- Dr. Seuss

source: "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

topic: Inspirational Life, Be Who You Are, Mind, Keep Smiling, Way In Life

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

- Aesop

source: Aesop (1963). “Aesop's fables”, Cliffs Notes

topic: Inspirational, Life, Happiness, Making A Difference In The World, Joy Happiness

In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.

- Margaret Wise Brown

topic: Song, Children, Childhood, Children's Literature, Children Literature

It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

- J. K. Rowling

source: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ch. 18 (1999)

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Make The Right Choice, Making Good Choices

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

- Dr. Seuss

source: The Lorax (1971)

topic: Inspirational, Life, Fun, Making A Difference In The World, Inspirational Children

a good deal of childhood is strong stuff for adults and totally unsuitable for children.

- Philippa Pearce

topic: Strong, Children, Childhood, Children's Literature

Most of the great works of juvenile literature are subversive in one way or another: they express ideas and emotions not generally approved of or even recognized at the time; they make fun of honored figures and piously held beliefs; and they view social pretenses with clear-eyed directness, remarking - as in Andersen's famous tale - that the emperor has no clothes.

- Alison Lurie

topic: Fun, Views, Ideas, Children's Literature

Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.

- George Carlin

topic: Faith, Children, Learning, Inspirational Education, Children's Books

Children’s literature must build a bridge between the colorful dream world full of fantasy and illusion, and a tougher real world full of twists and turns. The child armed with the torch of knowledge, awareness and guidance must cross this bridge and set foot to the intense harshness of the bigger world.

- Samad Behrangi

topic: Dream, Children, Real, Children's Literature, Twists And Turns

I don't think I'm essentially interested in children's books. I'm interested in writing, and in pictures. I'm interested in people and in children because they are people.

- Margaret Wise Brown

topic: Children, Book, Writing, Children's Literature

If I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I write it in a book for children. Children still haven't closed themselves off with fear of the unknown, fear of revolution, or the scramble for security. They are still familiar with the inborn vocabulary of myth

- Madeleine L'Engle

topic: Children, Book, Writing, Fear Of The Unknown, Children's Literature

To write for children at all is an act of faith.

- Madeleine L'Engle

topic: Children, Writing, Literature, Children's Literature

A children's writer should, ideally, be a dedicated semi-lunatic, a kind of poet with a marvelous idea, who, preferably, when not committing the marvellous idea to paper, does something else of a quite different kind, so as to acquire new and rich experience.

- Joan Aiken

topic: Children, Ideas, Doe, Marvellous, Children's Literature

Science Fiction is a branch of children's literature.

- Thomas M. Disch

source: Thomas M. Disch (2005). “On SF”, p.4, University of Michigan Press

topic: Children, Fiction, Literature, Children's Literature

What I use from my own life is not the facts, it's the emotion. It's how I felt about something. It has nothing to do with facts at all. You can get those anywhere. It's the feelings of childhood that you need to know.

- Judy Delton

topic: Childhood, Feelings, Needs, Children's Literature

Children's books are looked on as a sideline of literature. A special smile. They are usually thought to be associated with women. I was determined not to have this label of sentimentality put on me so I signed by my intials, hoping people wouldn't bother to wonder if the books were written by a man, woman or kangaroo.

- P. L. Travers

topic: Book, Men, People, Kangaroos, Children's Literature

Only as we give the children the truth about life can we expect any improvement in it.

- Mabel Robinson

source: Mabel Louise Robinson (1922). “Writing for Young People”

topic: Children, Giving, Literature, Children's Literature, Truth About Life

Humor is the oxygen of children's literature. There's a lot of competition for children's time, but even kids who hate to read want to read a funny book.

- Sid Fleischman

topic: Children, Hate, Book, Children's Literature, Funny Book

When people ask me what qualifies me to be a writer for children, I say I was once a child. But I was not only a child, I was, better still, a weird little kid, and though I would never choose to give my own children this particular preparation for life, there are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.

- Katherine Paterson

source: Katherine Paterson (2011). “Read for Your Life #18”, p.2, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Children, Kids, People, Children's Literature

More than this, I believe that the only lastingly important form of writing is writing for children. It is writing that is carried in the reader's heart for a lifetime; it is writing that speaks to the future.

- Sonya Hartnett

topic: Children, Believe, Heart, Children's Literature, This I Believe

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

topic: Country, Children, Book, Children's Literature

A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.

- Astrid Lindgren

topic: Children, Book, Healing, Children's Literature, Enchanted Places

By providing cheap and wholesome reading for the young, we have partly succeeded in driving from the field that which was positively bad; yet nothing is easier than to overdo a reformation, and, through the characteristic indulgence of American parents, children are drugged with a literature whose chief merit is its harmlessness.

- Agnes Repplier

source: Agnes Repplier (1888). “Books and Men”

topic: Children, Reading, Parent, Children's Literature, Harmlessness

A child... who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be changed from a menace into a desirable companion.

- Bruno Bettelheim

source: Bruno Bettelheim (1976). “The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales”, Vintage

topic: Children's Literature, Fairy Stories

I loved The Wind in the Willows. ... Walt Disney should be sued for cheapening it as he did. Imagine it, Mickey Mousing all those nice characters. I'm surprised he didn't do it with the New Testament.

- Tasha Tudor

topic: Movie, Nice, Character, Wind In The Willows, Children's Literature

The only books that work are those which fly through the air - the ones you let happen, not make happen.

- Rosemary Wells

topic: Book, Air, Literature, Children's Literature

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

topic: War, Loss, Reality, Children's Literature, Harsh Reality

Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves.

- Agnes Repplier

source: Agnes Repplier (1888). “Books and Men”

topic: Children, Book, Thinking, Children's Literature