A Quote by Andrew Clements

I get wonderful letters from kids and teachers. I must have the best readers in the world. — © Andrew Clements
I get wonderful letters from kids and teachers. I must have the best readers in the world.
I get letters from two kinds of readers. History buffs, who love to read history and biography for fun, and then kids who want to be writers but who rarely come out and say so in their letters. You can tell by the questions they ask - How did you get your ?rst book published? How long do you spend on a book? So I guess those are the readers that I'm writing for - kids who enjoy that kind of book, because they're interested in history, in other people's lives, in what has happened in the world. I believe that they're the ones who are going to be the movers and shakers.
I get some letters from a lot of people. Sometimes it's nice, with letters from kids or from parents of kids who want to be tennis players, but I also get racist letters. It's really painful to receive something like that because you're not ready for that. You think to yourself, 'That's really bad.' But I realise that there are people like that.
You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating and intricate style that might not appeal to as many readers but will be incredibly meaningful to the readers you have. Truly, that's as wonderful if not more wonderful.
The letters I get from people, a lot of people are very appreciative. I get stacks of letters. I'll do an event, and all the kids will send me all kinds of letters, and that right there is enough motivation to keep doing it.
Kids' views are often just as valid as the teachers'. The best teachers are the ones that know that.
Soon after publishing a book for kids, my mailbox began to fill with letters from children all across America. Not because my novels for young readers are bestsellers - they're not by a long shot - but because today's kids love to write to authors.
Fortunately for me, I ran across some girls I could get along with so I could enjoy high school life okay, but it must be awful for kids who don't get along with anybody. We're different from our parents, a completely different species from our teachers. And kids who are one grade apart you are in a different world altogether. In other words, we're basically surrounded by enemies and have to make it on our own.
[Kids] will grow up into a world that's difficult and wonderful, and they'll make the best of it they can, and hopefully help turn it in the best possible direction.
I didn't get into writing to make money or get famous or any of that. I got into it to hit hearts, and man, when I get letters not just from the soldiers but from their kids, especially their kids, it makes it all worthwhile.
My writerly aspirations are pretty simple: to provide as many readers as possible with the same sort of wonderful immersion that I myself get from fantasy novels - and to make enough money to help feed my kids while doing so.
The letters that say 'I'm getting the messages you're sending me through the television screen' are not great. But those are few and far between, thank God. I get wonderful letters, and people send me artwork.
People want it to be red, like blood. It's kind of funny. When I used to throw meat into the audience, I'd get letters from kids' mothers saying, "What's the best way to get blood stains out of my son's shirt?"
Children make better readers than adults. They read as carefully as I write; adults read as a means of getting off to sleep. I get letters saying 'I have read your book seventeen times.' If you're an adult novelist and you get that letter, you should be afraid. You're being stalked. Kids always read them seventeen times!
I wish there was something that - I get all those wonderful letters and wonderful acknowledgments, and I wish I could be more appreciative of what I do. But it's hard for me.
We had to be very careful on our best behaviour when we went to these other countries. And then I made a living, I had a chance to support my wife and my kids. It was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful program from that point of view.
I was always drawn toward the Actor's Studio. I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute when I first came to New York. One of my favorite teachers was one of Al [Pachino]'s teachers, a guy named Charlie Laughton, who was just a wonderful, wonderful man.
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