On writing for children & other people Book

Wow! Loved his beautiful, insightful thoughts. Here are just a few of my favorite:
1. “Each writing is an act of faith that requires the strength of ten thousand men” (15).
2. “Even though I am alone as I write and you are alone as you read, we are joined by a desire, a need to know something about who we are and why we are here” (17).
3. “The realm of memory is finite. That of the imagination is infinite because it enables us to see what we have not seen, what we may never see, what may not even exist. Imagination enables us to experience what it is like to be someone else” (39).
4. "At its best, story provides us with ways to see ourselves, ways to affirm our struggles to overcome adversities, ways to help us reach out to others and forge relationships” (49).
5. “Story creates an intimacy that is remembered in mind, body, and soul for a lifetime. . . . In the storytelling experience we bind ourselves to others. In so doing we overcome a measure of that loneliness inherent in the human condition. We need to share our stories because in so doing we hope to be understood and being understood we are no longer so alone” (50).
6. “Through story we seek to know ourselves and we seek to be known. Thus we become joined with others” (51).
7. "Sharing stories creates trust because through stories we come to a recognition of how much we have in common” (73).
8. “I would not become a writer until I found my subject. A writer can certainly have more than one subject over a lifetime, but that initial one opens the gate and grants admission to that element of soul uniquely his or hers to give expression to” (85).
9. "I learned that I had something in common with librarians and children—we read in order to be moved, and even changed by what we read. Librarians and children read as if books matter” (100-101).
10. “Most of us want to live our lives in such a way that we do as little harm as possible to ourselves and others. That sounds simple. In reality, it is quite difficult. And unless we begin that journey during adolescence, our lives will have less meaning than they could have” (103-104).
11. “To equate identity with race and culture is to deny the power of the imagination which can be the empathic bridge between nations, cultures, and individuals. Instead of placing barriers around a culture and denying others permission to enter, we should be thankful that people from outside our group are interested, curious, want to learn, want to feel a sense of belonging with us. Cultures are not private reserves but humble offerings” (129-130).
12. “In its essence, story is one heart touching another. Story is the vehicle we ride as we set out to explore the infinite space of our beings” (130).
13. “As a writer I am responsible to the story as an expression of the heart’s drama. Through story we bridge that loneliness intrinsic to being human, and in so doing we touch our common humanity” (130).
14. “Our lives begin generations, centuries maybe, before we are born and the personal pronoun “I” is not sufficient to describe our totality. That “I” consists, at a minimum, of the personal “I” we project into the world. But there is another “I,” the ancestral “I,” which is comprised of all those generations needed to create us” (134).
15. “All writing is autobiographical if one understands that the subject matter is the writer’s emotions, ancestral and/or personal” (136).
16. “Among the great wonders, the great mysteries, and the great truths of being human is the sound of a heart throbbing from within the dark silence at the center of a story” (147).