“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”

“If a book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”

“When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for children. Children are excited by new ideas; they have not yet closed the doors and windows of their imaginations. Provided the story is good... nothing is too difficult for children.”

“A book comes and says, 'Write me.”

“It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.”

“I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour — write, write, write.”

“You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”