“You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them. ”

“Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn't want you to? asked the rooster promptly."Yes," answered Kenny," if you write them a very nice poem.""What is an only goat?" "A lonely goat," answered Kenny.The rooster shut one eye and looked at Kenny."can you hear a horse on the roof?" he asked."If you know how to listen in the night," said Kenny."Can you fix a broken promise?""Yes," said Kenny,"if it only looks broken,but really isn't."The rooster drew his head back into his feathers and whispered, "What is a very narrow escape?""When somebody almost stops loving you," Kenny whispered back.”

“I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them.”

“Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.”

“Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.”

“The qualities that make for excellence in children's literature can be summed up in a single word: imagination. And imagination as it relates to the child is, to my mind, synonymous with fantasy. Contrary to most of the propaganda in books for the young, childhood is only partly a time of innocence. It is, in my opinion, a time of seriousness, bewilderment, and a good deal of suffering. It's also possibly the best of all times. Imagination for the child is the miraculous, freewheeling device he uses to course his way through the problems of every day....It's through fantasy that children achieve catharsis.”

“Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious — and what is too often overlooked — is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.”