Carmen Agra Deedy Quotes

I began telling stories as a volunteer in my daughters' school. But I grew up hearing stories from Cuban and Southern storytellers, and I learned a great deal by just being quiet and listening.

You're more likely to finish a book you enjoy, than one that feels like literary drudgery.

If you tell stories you love, you will never tell them with indifference - take it to the bank.

Because there is no nation so powerful it cannot be wounded, nor a people so small they cannot offer mighty comfort.

Listen to great storytellers; slowly, you will learn about voice, timing, tension, structure, climax - all the things you need to tell stories that will capture the imagination of your audience.

The hardest part is making the time to write. Not finding the time to write, mind you. Making.

I cannot always write at the same time, in the same place. I work, travel and have a vigorous family life. If I'm stranded in an airport lobby - I write. If I have to wait in a doctor's office - I write. If I have a morning or evening to myself - I write.

I find that it takes a lot of years of living, and many more of reckoning, to come up with one worthwhile paragraph. And when a deadline looms, prayer doesn't hurt, either.

If one mouse is a spark ... then ten thousand are a conflagration.

There are constant cycles in history. There is loss, but it is always followed by regeneration. The tales of our elders who remember such cycles are very important to us now.

Listening to others does not mean you should sound like them; find your own voice by telling stories as authentically as possible.

You want the truth, Master Skilley? Then find out just what manner of cat you really are... and brazenly, unabashedly, boldly, be that cat.

I have been ineluctably drawn to libraries ever since I entered that sanctum sanctorum. It was a place of quietude. In a world where things go beep and ding and ring, where you've got mail and you've got messages, when I enter a library, I feel that I am still entering a temple.