268 Quotes by Katherine Paterson

The conquering army had perpetrated untold atrocities. The Japanese had occupied my home and twice forced us to leave the land I loved.

Whoever heard of a king who was scared of tall trees and a little bit of water?

She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there – like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.

The work reveals the creator – and as our universe in its vastness, its orderliness, its exquisite detail, tells us something of the One who made it, so a work of fiction, for better or worse, will reveal the writer.

He nodded vigorously. Anything was better than promising to fight Janice Avery.

I guess real maturity, which most of us never achieve, is when you realize that you’re not the center of the universe.

Once there, the chaplain closed the door and threw his arms around her. Alarmed, she jammed the heel of her pump into his foot. He let go with a howl and she fled. The incident was never spoken of again until she had daughters of her own. I can remember at about thirteen staring wide-eyed at my proper mother when she thought it time to tell me this cautionary tale.

Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don’t have to be ashamed.

I can’t believe there will ever be a time when the book is truly obsolete. It is the perfect technology and feeds the soul.