Zilpha Keatley Snyder Quotes

Belief in mysteries, any manner of mysteries, is the only lasting luxury in life.

I think writing is an extension of a childhood habit - the habit of entertaining oneself by taking interesting bits of reality and building upon them.

Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell ... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing.

Belonging to a place isn't nearly as necessary as belonging to people you love and who love you and need you.

Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings.

There was that special smell made up of paper, ink, and dust; the busy hush; the endless luxury of thousands of unread books. Best of all was the eager itch of anticipation as you went out the door with your arms loaded down with books.

As time passed and Harry flew and flew and flew, he forgot all about the fog, the city below him, and just about everything. Nothing in the world seemed to matter but wings, and sky, and motion. The free and endless kind of motion that people are always looking for in a hundred different ways.

Flying was the way a swing swoops up; and the glide down a slide. It was the shoot of a sled downhill without the long climb back up. It was the very best throat-tightening thrills of skis, skates, surfboards and trampolines. Diving boards, merry-go-rounds, Ferris wheels, .roller coasters, skate boards and soap-box coasters. It was all of them, one after the other, all at once and a thousand times over.

But now and then, beneath the outer numbness, something stirred, like a living pain waiting for the anesthetic to wear away.

We all invite our own devils, and we must exorcise our own.

It's such a wonderful feeling to watch a child discover that reading is a marvelous adventure rather than a chore. I know that many writers for children say they do not write specifically with a child audience in mind ... This isn't true for me. I am very aware of my audience. Sometimes I can almost see them out there reacting as I write. Sometimes I think, 'Oh, you're going to like this part.

Nothing's real unless you want it to be, and anything can be real if you want it to enough; so real doesn't really mean anything.

Know all the Questions, but not the Answers
Look for the Different, instead of the Same
Never Walk where there's room for Running
Don't do anything that can't be a Game

The answers aren't important really ... What's important is- knowing all the questions.

At the age of eight I became, in my own eyes at least, a writer.