We book people are always preaching about reading aloud to children, but unless you do, you can't realize how it enriches family life.

He [an earnest young reporter] seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children's books is to whip the little rascals into shape.

It's like the smarter you are, the more things can scare you.

Nothing smelled so good or danced so well as a birch fire.

Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed an enormous amount of freedom ordinary people are denied.

If we marvel at the artist who has written a great book, we must marvel more at those people whose lives are works of art and who don't even know it, who wouldn't believe it if they were told. However hard work good writing may be, it is easier than good living.

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.