Everybody's got the seam of goodness in them, Kit," said Grandpa. "Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light.
David AlmondI thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.
David AlmondThen what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.
David AlmondThis is our world. Aye, there's more than enough of darkness in it. But over everything there's all this joy, Kit. There's all this lovely, lovely light.
David AlmondIts always been the case that politicians want different things from children than good educators do. Good educators want imaginative, exploratory beings, but politicians just want economic units.
David AlmondThe best tip for writing is just to write; to sit down and write, to begin doing it and not to be scared by the blank page.
David AlmondWe have each other, and our stories twist and mingle like the twisting currents of a river. We hold each other tight as we spin and lurch across our lives. There are moments of great joy and magic. The most astounding things can lie waiting as each day dawns, as each page turns.
David AlmondI don't want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I'll be in the future. I want to be me and nothing but me. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it's possible to be. I'm growing and I don't know how to grow. I'm living but I haven't started living yet.
David AlmondBooks. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in there jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journy of exploration and discovery.
David AlmondA good bookshop is not just about selling books from shelves, but reaching out into the world and making a difference.
David AlmondMy work explores the frontier between rationalism and superstition and the wavering boundary between the two.
David AlmondWhen you grow up", I said, "do you ever stop feeling little and weak?" "No," she says. "There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.
David AlmondWe come to a lamp beside the pathway, and suddenly we stop walking, and we start to dance, and we glitter in the shafts of light, like stars, like flies, like flakes of dust.
David AlmondSometimes we just have to accept there are things we canโt know. Why is your sister ill? Why did my father die?โฆSometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we canโt. we have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.
David AlmondWhat are you?" I whispered. He shrugged again. "Something," he said. "Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel." He laughed. "Something like that.
David AlmondWriting will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.
David AlmondWords should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.
David AlmondThey say that shoulder blades are where your wings were, when you were an angel," she said. "They say they're where your wings will grow again one day.
David AlmondAnd what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!
David AlmondShe finds tales everywhere, in grains of sand she picks up from the garden, in puffs of smoke that drift out from the chimneys of the village, in fragments of smooth timber or glass in the jetsam. She will ask them, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?" And they will answer her in voices very like her own, but with new lilts and squeaks and splashes in them that show they are their own.
David Almond