Patricia MacLachlan Quotes

I think what happens is you write how you grew up. And I was born on the prairie, and so everything is kind of spare on the prairie. And so I'm just used to writing in that way. 'Sarah, Plain and Tall' was that way. And most of my fiction is. I like writing small pieces. Somehow it just suits me.

I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall.

There are some things for which there are no answers, no matter how beautiful the words may be.

more perfect than the moon

There is always something to miss, no matter where you are.

Outlines are silly. Once you write the outline, there's no reason to write the story. You write to participate . . . to find out what is going to happen!

sounds of Suzuki,

Being married to a psychologist, I realize that I learn more from imperfections.

My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we don't really get jealous, we get inspired, and that's kind of the mark of what a good writer is.

I love to talk to children about making mistakes. It's important that I tell them about how I don't get it right the first time. We live in such a perfectionist society, and they see so many finished products and polished performances.

My mother, as a girl, had remembered this woman from Maine, someone who was part of the extended family somehow, and I recall her talking about this great, risk-taking woman. There are the most amazing, heroic stories in everybody's lives.

I sing the songs I sang to you every night.
I sing them
so I will remember you,
hoping that you will remember me too,
even though I am here,
and you are there.

Wait. I'll take you in to the doctor," she called to Grandfather.
Grandfather waved his hand and climbed up the steps.
"I'll do this myself," he said.
Anna smiled.
"I was about to ask what he was like," she said.
"That's easy," I said. "He's like…"
"Papa," we said at the same time, laughing.

Sometimes poetry
words
give us a small, lovely look at ourselves. And sometimes that is enough.

Poets and children," said Sylvan. "We are the same really. When you can't find a poet, find a child. Remember that.

You will have a story in there ... or a character, a place, a poem, a moment in time. When you find it, you will write it. Word after word after word after word.

My brother William is a fisherman, and he tells me that when he is in the middle of a fogbound
sea the water is a color for which there is no name.

This is important to writing ... that is, it is important to my own writing. This ... is landscape! Mine. This dirt came from the prairie where I was a child. I played in it, dug in it, planted in it, and walked over it. It is where I began. And all my writing begins with a landscape such as this. A place.

Things happen, Jacob," I heard Sarah say. "The rope broke. I could have died."
"Don't, Sarah," said Papa.
"You could have lost me, Jacob," said Sarah. "And that's the way life is. Something happens . . . one little moment in time. If you're lucky, you have a chance to make things better. You have that chance here. Don't let it pass.

I think it's important to remember where I began. I know that when I talk to other writers, say, writers from the South or writers from abroad, it's where they begin as children that is important to them.

Sometimes, what people choose to write down on paper is more important than what they say.
Caleb didn't know what Sarah meant. But I knew. I wrote in my journal every night. And when I read what I had written, I could see myself there, clearer than when I looked in the mirror. I could see all of us: Papa, who couldn't always say the things he felt; Caleb, who said everything; and Sarah, who didn't know that she had changed us all.

I, myself, write to change my life, to make it come out the way I want it to. But other people write for other reasons: to see more closely what it is they are thinking about, what they may be afraid of. Sometimes writers write to solve a problem, to answer their own question. All these reasons are good reasons. And that is the most important thing I'll ever tell you. Maybe it is the most important thing you'll ever hear. Ever.

The sounds of voices and laughter are like little pebbles.
All around us.
We can reach up and scoop them up in our hands.
Holding them close to us.
Saving them forever.


When I reach my journal to Grandfather, he smiled.
"Forever," he said, more to himself than to me.
He walked over to the driveway and bent down. Then he came back to where I stood. He took my hand and put a pebble there.
"I…," he said.
"Love…" He put another pebble there.
"You," he said as he placed the last one.
I stared at them for a long time, then closed my hand over them. When I looked up again, Grandfather was gone.

What happened last night was my fault," I said. "I put up the rope, Sarah. I must have done it wrong."
"Fault?" said Sarah. "Oh, Caleb, I want you to listen to me. There comes a time when fault doesn't matter. Things happen. And we can't blame ourselves--or someone else--forever."
I heard a noise behind me, and saw Papa standing there, Cassie beside him. I knew he had heard Sarah's words.

Some words may make you happy, some may make you said. Maybe some will make you angry. What I hope ... what I hope is that something will whisper in your ear.

Remember you asked me who I wanted to be like?" I said to Sarah.
Sarah nodded.
"It's Papa. I want to be like Papa," I said.
For some reason--I couldn't say why--I began to cry. Sarah reached out and took my hand. But I cried so hard that, finally, Sarah got up and came to sit by me, putting her arms around me. Lottie and Nick came over to us, Lottie putting her head in my lap so that my tears fell onto her nose.
Cassie came into the room.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," said Sarah. "Not one thing in the world is wrong.

My greatest fear is being somewhere without a book.

I wiped my hands on my apron and went to the window. Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down. Though the winter was nearly over, there were patches of snow and ice everywhere. I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn't.

Writing... is ... brave. You are brave.

Looking back, I see that I write books about brothers and sisters, about what makes up a family, what works and what is nurturing.

Tune, tune," said Porch briskly. He turned to Orson. "And is there a word for today?" Orson was the word person, spilling words out as if they were notes on a staff. "Rebarbative," said Orson promptly. "Causing annoyance or irritation. Mozart's rebarbative music causes me to want to throw up." Porch sighed. Orson preferred Schubert.

Byrd: It is important because we are giving her something to take away with her when she goes.
Lalo: What will she take with her?
Byrd: Us.
Sophie: And what will we have when she's gone?
Byrd looked at Sophie and shook her head because she couldn't speak

There are no words for this.

Life is made up of circles ... Life is not a straight line ... And sometimes we circle back to a past time. But we are not the same. We are changed forever.

All the world can be found in poetry. All you need to see and hear. All the moments, good and bad, joyous and sad.

Sometimes you think you know more than you really do - people, events, things that are true and things that are not. Sometimes you think you know yourself. But then, surprise, it is someone else who shows you what is really there, like the truth a photograph shows.

There are always things to miss," said Maggie. "No matter where you are.

Dogs speak words, but only poets and children Hear.

In a way, my childhood was one long bunch of pages ... I read and read and read.

Papa sat down at the table. Grandfather poured him coffee.
"You must have been up all night," he said to Papa.
Papa looked at Sarah.
"I didn't want her to go back to sleep," he said.
Grandfather smiled.
"No, you didn't.

In Moonlight
No
Soft sweet paw on my cheek
No
Fur curled under my chin
Just
A sad space left behind -
Gray cat gone away.

[Ellie's poem]

I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off ... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'

What is perfect? Journey, a thing doesn't have to be perfect to be fine. That goes for a picture. That goes for life ... Things can be good enough.