Literary Birthday – 15 May – David Almond

David Almond Quotes

1. The best tip for writing is just to write; to sit down and write, to begin doing it and not to be scared by the blank page.
2. Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.
3. Anything seems possible at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.
4. We have each other, and our stories twist and mingle like the twisting currents of a river. We hold each other tight as we spin and lurch across our lives. There are moments of great joy and magic. The most astounding things can lie waiting as each day dawns, as each page turns.
5. Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.
6. Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can’t. We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.
7. Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you see what you’re looking at more clearly.
8. A good bookshop is not just about selling books from shelves, but reaching out into the world and making a difference.
9. Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you’re off on a journey of exploration and discovery.
10. My work explores the frontier between rationalism and superstition and the wavering boundary between the two.
11. Its always been the case that politicians want different things from children than good educators do. Good educators want imaginative, exploratory beings, but politicians just want economic units.
12. And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!
13. Maybe we’re all in somebody’s dream. Maybe everything’s a dream, and nothing else.

David Almond is a critically-acclaimed British author who writes for children and young adults. His books include Skellig and The Fire-Eaters. His major awards include the Carnegie Medal (Skellig), two Whitbread Awards, the U.S. Michael L. Printz Award for young-adult books (Kit’s Wilderness), and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (A Song for Ella Grey).

Image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Almond_photograph.jpg

Sara Jane Palmer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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