Diana Wynne Jones
It's a lucky child that knows that they're a genius, unaimed and all that.
And indeed if you think you're a genius at something, what you achieve is very much according to your expectations; if you think you're no good, you're not going to get anywhere.
If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.
Mainly as sort of blueprints for dealing with most of the adults in their lives, to some extent with their fellows. It is this notion of aiming high and there's always hope, aim low and you might as well stop now.
Actually, in the wild, we'd be the only person that we wouldn't recognize, if you think about it.
I do feel very strongly that this is one of the things which people need encouragement to sort out, because I have this very strong feeling that everybody is probably a genius at something, it's just a question of finding this.
I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.
I think one of things is that all fantasy it seems to me works the way your brain basically works. This is perhaps a startling concept, but I think it's true.
This does make me very very careful, particularly in the second draft, to get it right, because you do feel that somebody in the future who may be extremely important for everybody, is going to have me behind them, and this is a responsibility, a huge one.
This is ridiculous, I mean, wholly ridiculous. It never did any child any harm to have something that was a tiny bit above them anyway, and I claim that anyone who can follow Doctor Who can follow absolutely anything.
Fantasy for me as a kid was real, and I had a fantasy about what life was, whether it was sort of wicked and dire, or wholly normal, or whatever. Anything really close to home is not, it seems to me, what a good book should be about.
I find it just simply takes me right back to those times, and I really can't take it, I don't want to, I mean, why should I face up to it? What good does it do me? I know it happened, and that's it.
It seems to me that humour is everybody's way of keeping sane and standing off from the situations so that they can see it intellectually, as well as emotionally, and I don't know whether you've noticed, but if somebody tells a joke, it's nearly always a mini fantasy.
I think we ought to live happily ever after.Collection: Love
A library is a place full of mouth-watering food for thought.Collection: Library
Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World.Collection: World
Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things.Collection: Tea
To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.Collection: Forever
Imagination doesn’t just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them, or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful. Head teachers would call this escapism, but they would be entirely wrong. I would call fantasy the most serious, and the most useful, branch of writing there is. And this is why I don’t, and never would, write Real Books.Collection: Teacher
Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.Collection: Fairy Stories
One person ought to treat another person properly, even if the person's himself.Collection: Treats
Hope is the forward-looking part of memory.Collection: Hope
You've no right to walk into people's castles and take their guitars.Collection: Guitar
Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.Collection: Silly
Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only need to tell things to once.Collection: Children
A fickle heart is the only constant in this worldCollection: Heart
It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.Collection: Writing
Take it from me, Fate doesn't care most of the time.Collection: Fate
The truth between two people always cuts two ways.Collection: Cutting
That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.Collection: Trying
I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so.Collection: Dog
I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!Collection: Animal
"Eight Days of Luke" was refused by another confused publisher on the grounds that children shouldn't strike matches. When my agent pointed out that David in the book was twelve years old, the publisher said that he was striking matches to summon the devil, then, and this couldn't be allowed.Collection: Children
My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.Collection: Shining
I think my moment of revelation came when I saw this young man come on court in the most flamboyant clothes. He had a sweet smile and questionably blonde hair and a generally chirpy glamour that in fact concealed huge skill. When he was interviewed he confessed to hating to get angry and it was also said that he slithered out of winning when it came to the big matches. And I thought, My God! This Andre Agassi is the image of Howl in my book HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE!Collection: Sweet
I seem to have excalibured this knife.Collection: Knives
Yes. I was looking for Lettie. They were both very kind to me,” Percival said, “Even though they’d never seen me before. And Wizard Howl kept visiting to court Lettie. Lettie didn’t want him, and she asked me to bite him to get rid of him, until Howl suddenly began asking her about you and—“ “what?” he said, “ I know someone called sophie who looks a little like you.. And Lettie said, that’s my sister,’ without thinking,” Percival said. “ And she got terribly worried then, particularly as Howl went on asking about her sister.Collection: Thinking
Small Man can be a very funny or a very tiresome Tour Companion, depending on how this kind of thing grabs you. He gambles, he drinks too much and he always runs away. Since the Rules allow him to make Jokes, he will excuse his behaviour in a variety of comical ways. Physically he is stunted and not at all handsome, although he usually dresses flamboyantly. He tends to wear hats with feathers in. You will discover he is very vain. But, if you can avoid smacking him, you will come to tolerate if not love him. He will contrive, in some cowardly way, to play a major part in saving the world.Collection: Running
Howl has been very kind to me." And this was true, Sophie realized. Howl showed his kindness rather strangely, but, considering all Sophie did to annoy him, he had been very good to her indeed. "Do listen. He's not wicked at all!" There was a bit of a fizz from the grate at this, where Calcifer was watching with some interest. " He isn't!" Sophie said, to Calcifer as much as to Fanny.Collection: Kindness
Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.Collection: Dream
As often happened, Charmain began to despair of getting her mother to understand. She's not stupid, she just never lets her mind out, she thought.Collection: Mother
Sophie said a bad word. In the dim light she had stubbed her toe on one of the many dusty bricks piled around the place. Naughty-naughty" Twinkle said. Oh shut up!" Sophie said , standing on one leg to hold her toe. "Why don't you grow up?Collection: Growing Up
And it's a pity too that I've no right to open your letters. I hope you don't get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.Collection: Giving
Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet. "I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.Collection: Thinking
What a strange family you are! Is your name Lettie too?Collection: Names
Sorry, I've had enough of running away, Sophie. Now I've got something I want to protect. It's you.Collection: Running
Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.Collection: Clean
He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.Collection: Parent
Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.Collection: Library
Every man in Ingary is scared stiff of her. You ought to know how that feels, Sophie dear.Collection: Men