David Almond
My work explores the frontier between rationalism and superstition and the wavering boundary between the two.
I know I'm writing better now than I ever did for adults because I'm writing for an audience who know that they don't know everything.
It's always been the case that politicians want different things from children than good educators do. Good educators want imaginative, exploratory beings, but politicians just want economic units.
The sounds and rhythms of words are really important to me.
Themes around education and learning run through my work.
I learned to be a regional writer by reading people like Flannery O'Connor. She was a huge influence.
The best tip for writing is just to write; to sit down and write, to begin doing it and not to be scared by the blank page.Collection: Writing
Anything seems possible at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.Collection: Sleep
Everybody's got the seam of goodness in them, Kit," said Grandpa. "Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light.Collection: Light
We have each other, and our stories twist and mingle like the twisting currents of a river. We hold each other tight as we spin and lurch across our lives. There are moments of great joy and magic. The most astounding things can lie waiting as each day dawns, as each page turns.Collection: Lying
Maybe we're all in somebody's dream. Maybe everything's a dream, and nothing else.Collection: Dream
Sometimes we just have to accept there are things we can’t know. Why is your sister ill? Why did my father die?…Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can’t. we have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.Collection: Father
Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.Collection: Cat
A good bookshop is not just about selling books from shelves, but reaching out into the world and making a difference.Collection: Book
Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.Collection: Writing
There's light and joy, but there's also darkness all around and we can be lost in it.Collection: Light
And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!Collection: Children
Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in there jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journy of exploration and discovery.Collection: Book
We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.Collection: Imagine
When you grow up", I said, "do you ever stop feeling little and weak?" "No," she says. "There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.Collection: Growing Up
Then what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.Collection: Book
I sit in my tree I sing like the birds My beak is my pen My songs are my poems.Collection: Song
I don't want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I'll be in the future. I want to be me and nothing but me. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it's possible to be. I'm growing and I don't know how to grow. I'm living but I haven't started living yet.Collection: Crazy
I thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.Collection: Stupid
Yes. But sad's alright. Sad's just apart of everythingCollection: Alright
She finds tales everywhere, in grains of sand she picks up from the garden, in puffs of smoke that drift out from the chimneys of the village, in fragments of smooth timber or glass in the jetsam. She will ask them, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?" And they will answer her in voices very like her own, but with new lilts and squeaks and splashes in them that show they are their own.Collection: Garden
They say that shoulder blades are where your wings were, when you were an angel," she said. "They say they're where your wings will grow again one day.Collection: Angel
Its always been the case that politicians want different things from children than good educators do. Good educators want imaginative, exploratory beings, but politicians just want economic units.Collection: Children
Truth and dreams are always getting muddled.Collection: Dream
This is our world. Aye, there's more than enough of darkness in it. But over everything there's all this joy, Kit. There's all this lovely, lovely light.Collection: Our World
The dead are often known to eat 27 and 53Collection: Known
What are you?" I whispered. He shrugged again. "Something," he said. "Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel." He laughed. "Something like that.Collection: Angel