29 Quotes & Sayings By Katherine Paterson

Katherine Paterson is the author of twenty-eight books including the Newbery Medal-winning Bridge to Terabithia, the National Book Award-winning Socks, and the Newbery Honor Book, The Great Gilly Hopkins. Paterson also wrote Little Women (Illustrated by Louis Darling), Holes (Illustrated by Jim Paillot), and The Great Gilly Hopkins. She lives in New York City with her family.

Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate...
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Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits. Katherine Paterson
You think it's so great to die and make everyone...
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You think it's so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well it ain't. Katherine Paterson
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I love revisions… We can’t go back and revise our lives, but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest. Katherine Paterson
Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography,...
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Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility. Katherine Paterson
You never know ahead of time what something's really going...
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You never know ahead of time what something's really going to be like. Katherine Paterson
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All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us. Katherine Paterson
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The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before. Katherine Paterson
Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to...
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Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed. Katherine Paterson
Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed...
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Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed an enormous amount of freedom ordinary people are denied Katherine Paterson
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The growth of the imagination demands windows-windows through which we can look out at the world and windows through which we can look into ourselves. The old stories were windows in just this way. Katherine Paterson
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My heart is heavy, she thought. It’s not just a saying. It is what is–heavy, a great stone lodged in my breast, pressing down my whole being. How can I even stand straight and look out upon the world? I am doubled over into myself and, for all the weight, find only emptiness. Katherine Paterson
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Life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough Katherine Paterson
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When my husband died, people kept telling me not to cry. People kept trying to help me to forget. But I didn't want to forget... So I realize, that if it's hard for me, how much harder it must be for you. Katherine Paterson
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I was behaving, just like I promised, but fate intervened. Katherine Paterson
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On Decoration Day, while everyone else in town was at the cemetery decorating the graves of our Glorious War Dead, Willie Beaner and me, Robert Burns Hewitt, took Mabel Cramm's bloomers and run them up the flagpole in front of the town hall. That was the beginning of all my troubles. Katherine Paterson
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I have been mocked by beauty, too. But it was the beauty which cost me nothing that in the end turned upon me. Katherine Paterson
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Church always seemed the same. Jess could tune it out the same way he tuned out school, with his body standing up and sitting down in unison with the rest of the congregation but his mind numb and floating, not really thinking or dreaming but at least free. Katherine Paterson
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Many people are angry when they make a mistake, but very few people have the sense to be sorry. Katherine Paterson
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It's crazy isn't it?" She shook her head. "You have to believe it, but you hate it. I don't have to believe it, and I think it's beautiful." She shook her head again. "It's crazy. Katherine Paterson
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She wasn't scared of going deep, deep down in a world of no air and little light Katherine Paterson
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The very persons who have taken away my time and space are those who have given me something to say. Katherine Paterson
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You're the proverbial diamond in the rough", she'd said to him once, touching his nose lightly with the tip of her electrifying finger. Katherine Paterson
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...the long train ride was like traveling through limbo. You weren't anywhere when you were on a train, she decided. You weren't where you had been, and you weren't yet where you were going. You were nowhere. It might be beautiful outside the window-and it was, she had sense enough to realize that-but it wasn't anywhere to her, just a scene passing by that was framed by the train window. (p160) Katherine Paterson
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..I just gave up trying to be a Christian.. Let's face it, I ain't got the knack for holiness. Besides, I didn't have the slightest little desire to join the likes of Reverend Pelham at the dinner table for fourteen minutes, much less at the banquet table of Heaven eternally. Eternity is a mighty long time to be stuck with people who judge every word you say and think and condemn most of what you do. It struck me as pretty miserable company. And if Reverend Pelham was the kind of company God preferred to keep, well, I just hoped they'd be happy together. Katherine Paterson
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Fear is one thing. To let fear grab you and swing you around by the tail is another. Katherine Paterson
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Hope ... is not a feeling it is something you do. Katherine Paterson
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The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it. Katherine Paterson
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If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird. Katherine Paterson