370 Quotes by Sabaa Tahir

Young readers can sense when you're not addressing what's actually going on.

My readers and I, we have the same taste, and it's awesome. They'll tell me about stuff that I haven't heard of.

I grew up in a small town in the Mojave Desert where conservative Republicans were as common as cacti. Inexplicably, I grew up liberal and a feminist.

I think that YA stories have a lot of heart, and I think that whatever age we are, we connect to them because we sort of see ourselves in them.

I felt like an outcast and turned to books, fantasy in particular, to find a place for myself. Reading took me away from this world, which I needed.

I wanted to write something that reflected the violence and horror of the world, but I also wanted to reflect the way people fight to survive, even when society wants to crush them.

Reading about people who were so truly voiceless and powerless - Liberian child soldiers, Sudanese refugees, and, especially, Kashmiri women whose husbands or sons were imprisoned by the army with no hope of release - made me think about how I would feel if someone took my brothers from me.

'The Sword of Shannara' is about two brothers who find themselves on an epic quest to save humanity. It borrows from 'Lord of the Rings' but is still original in its own right. I read it in three days, then reread it, then went out and found every single book Terry Brooks ever wrote, and read all those.

I don't go on social media with a mercenary intent to promote. That's just wrong. I go to learn, to listen, to have fun, to find people who love what I love and who introduce me to new things. That's where the joy is: in the interactions.