A Quote by Isaac Bashevis Singer

There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Quote Topics

About Adults Alienation Angels Believe Believe In God Beloved Books Childish Children Clarity Critics Devils Expect Family Free Get Give God Guilt His Hoot Humanity Illusions Know Logic Obsolete Only Other Power Punctuation Quench Read Reasons Rebellion Redeem Reviews Rid Still Stuff Themselves Thirst Witches Write Writer Young

Quote Author

Isaac Bashevis Singer
American - Writer
November 21, 1902 - July 24, 1991

Children have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish allusions.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

I wish that the adults who are 'in power' cared more about what their children read. Books are incredibly powerful when we are young - the books I read as a child have stayed with me my entire life - and yet, the people who write about books, for the most part, completely ignore children's literature.

Gabrielle Zevin

The secret of keeping young is to read children's books. You read the books they write for little children and you'll keep young. You read novels, philosophy, stuff like that and it makes you feel old.

John Cheever

In my experience, adults rarely bother reading the reviews of children's books and almost never read the books themselves - particularly if they don't have children.

Meg Rosoff

I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books.

Lois Lowry

I read a couple of books a week. About 80 percent of what I read is contemporary literature for adults. The other 20 percent is made up of non-fiction and children's books.

Kate DiCamillo

I like reading books about kids where there weren't really many adults, where they didn't need an adult to come and solve the problems for them. They could use their own ingenuity, use their own talents to solve whatever the issue was. And I like that still. I think that children want to read about heroic children. They don't want to read about children that have to be saved all the time.

John Boyne

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!

Daniel Pinkwater

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults.

Thomas Szasz

Kids not only need to read a lot but they need lots of books they can read right at their fingertips.They also need access to books that entice them, attract them to reading. Schools...can make it easy and unrisky for children to take books home for the evening or weekend by worrying less about losing books to children and more about losing children to illiteracy.

Richard Allington

Every generation likes to think that children don't read as much as they used to when they were young! You listen to some adults saying they were going around reading 'Ulysses' when they were seven or eight! I think children are voracious readers if you give them the right books and if you make those books accessible to them.

Darren Shan

Loads of children read books about dinosaurs, underwater monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots. Essentially, the people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't grown out of enjoying the strange and weird.

China Mieville

We know that children need help to read, and the best time to start them reading is very young. We believe that when children see adults from all walks of life and from throughout the community reading to them, that is another opportunity for children to see the importance of reading.