I feel that anybody who addresses himself to children has a responsibility, and that responsibility is to make available to children the very best that has ever been produced and to sustain the distinction of what has been produced. Everybody in the popular entertainment field or in the popular arts has a responsibility.

If everything is made so obvious that it asks nothing of the readers, then after a while, their ability to respond is atrophied. And they grow up as young people unable to take anything from a printed page, or they become bored because they haven't discovered the nuances, the differences of opinion, the differences of approach between one author and another. Children can be trusted to skip what they don't like in a book. That's perfectly all right. But to have it all reduced to the supposedly twelve-year-old mind of the adult public is what I object to.

There is no reason why good books should be lowered or lessened being rewritten to meet the demands of people who are not ready or interested enough to make the effort to read.

A love of reading encompasses the whole of life: information, knowledge, insight and understanding, pleasure; the power to think, to select, to act, to create - all of these are inherent in a love of reading.

The library profession is ... a profession that is informed, illuminated, radiated by a fierce and beautiful love of books. A love so overwhelming that it engulfs community after community and makes the culture of our time distinctive, individual, creative and truly of the spirit.

I think the number of books published by Mr. Disney has nothing to do with whether or not he is bringing literature to children. That judgment has got to be based on quality rather than quantity. It's the same old problem that continually plagues American culture. I would rather have children playing their own games out of doors in the sunlight than getting the misrepresentation of literature as given by Walt Disney.

We're caught in the pace of modern living - this emphasis on the "quick take," on the magazine that says it will take you eight minutes to read an article. It seems to me that here is a tendency that ought to be denied in part. Certain children do read in the past; they love the old language; they love the sound of words. I don't think it's good enough to say something is better because is it updated and modern.