Quotes

[when asked what the his formula for success was as an author of children's books] Conspiring with children against adults.

[1988 interview with Todd McCormack] When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them and this is even more true in children's books. I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact.

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

My faults and foibles are legion.

[his novel Over to You] Ten stories of flyers and flying.

[last words to his family] It's just that I will miss you all so much. [a nurse injected a needle onto him] Ow, fuck!

I mean, if you and I were in a line moving towards what we knew were gas chambers, I'd rather have a go at taking one of the guards with me; but they were always submissive.

I am certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic.

There is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.

I just want someone who can make me a cup of tea.

If a person has ugly thoughts it begins to show on the face.

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

The President said a very rude word into the microphone and ten million children across the nation began repeating it gleefully and got smacked by their parents.

It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.

It is very difficult to phone people in China. The country is so full of Wings and Wongs, every time you wing you get the wong number.