Lloyd Alexander

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”

“Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them. Readers and writers alike discover things they never knew about the world and about the...”

“Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts.”

“She has given you something of value: the truth in her heart.”

“A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. 'There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Ar...”

“Torrens kicked at the door until it was finally opened. The farm couple and three youngsters had been eating breakfast in the common room. The yard dog would have bounded in had not Torrens...”

“Find what you want. I will find you.”

“I decided that adventure was the best way to learn about writing.”

“...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger...”

“I think imagination is at the heart of everything we do. Scientific discoveries couldn't have happened without imagination. Art, music, and literature couldn't exist without imagination. And...”

“King Arthur was one of my heroes - I played with a trash can lid for a knightly shield and my uncle's cane for the sword Excalibur.”

“I had always been interested in mythology. I suppose my brief stay in Wales during World War II influenced my writing, too. It was an amazing country. It has marvelous castles and scenery.”

“After high school, I worked as a messenger boy at a local bank. I was miserable. I felt like Robin Hood chained in the Sheriff of Nottingham's dungeon. As a would-be writer, I thought it was...”

“I never saw fairy tales as an escape or a cop-out... On the contrary, speaking for myself, it is the way to understand reality.”

“Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.”

“I guess there's only two possible places ideas can come from. One is the outside: everything that happens to you and everything that you do in life. And the other is the inside part: your ow...”

“There's this huge number of desperate people.”

“Using the device of an imaginary world allows me in some strange way to go to the central issues - it's one of many ways to express feelings about real people, about real human relationships...”

“In whatever guise - our own daily nightmares of war, intolerance, inhumanity or the struggles of an Assistant Pig-Keeper against the Lord of Death - the problems are agonizingly familiar. An...”

“I used the imaginary kingdom not as a sentimentalized fairyland but as an opening wedge to express what I hoped would be some very hard truths.”