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All Quotes by author - Lloyd Alexander
" 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 a catastrophe. As a bank employee, I could barely add or subtract and had to count on my fingers. "
School
Boy
High School
" After I saved some money, I quit work and went to a local college. "
Local
Quit
College
" After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published. "
Years
Support
Working
" All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts. "
Keep
Hearts
Trying
" Children's literature is as valid an art form as any other. "
Valid
Art
Children
" Classical heroes are usually much larger than life. They're not quite human beings. They're somehow larger than human scale. "
Heroes
Than
Much
" Eventually, I was sent to Wales and Germany, and after the war, to Paris. "
Germany
After
Paris
" Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it. "
Reality
Escape
Fantasy
" From as far back as I can remember, I always loved the King Arthur stories, fairy tales, mythology - things like that. So it was very natural for me when I came to write the 'Prydain' books to sort of follow that direction. "
Remember
Direction
King
" Heroes are people who think more of others than themselves. This is not to say that they don't think of themselves. They do. They certainly do. But they think of others more. "
More
Think
Say
" I decided that adventure was the best way to learn about writing. "
Writing
Adventure
Best
" I didn't know if I'd be good with children. Actually talking with them, I mean. But I am good with them. "
Am
Talking
Know
" I first wrote for adults, but when I started writing for young people, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life. I was able to express my own deepest feelings far more than I ever could when writing for adults. "
Experience
Life
People
" If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn. "
Perhaps
Than
More
" 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 own personality and imagination, and no two people are alike, like fingerprints. "
People
Imagination
Life
" 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. "
Scenery
Writing
Amazing
" I loved all the world's mythologies. "
Loved
World
" I'm impossible when a book is taking shape. Well, actually, I'm despicable. "
Well
Impossible
Shape
" I never have found out all I want to know about writing and realize I never will. "
Know
Never
Out
" 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. "
Myself
Reality
Escape
" 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. And an openness to compassion, love, and mercy is as essential to us here and now as it is to any inhabitant of an imaginary kingdom. "
Own
Daily
Death
" It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army. "
World
World War II
Army
" 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. "
Used
Kingdom
Hard
" I was afraid that not even Merlin the Enchanter could transform me into a writer. "
Even
Writer
Transform
" King Arthur was one of my heroes because he was such a marvelous, heroic, courageous, and magnificent person that I had to admire him even though I knew perfectly well that I could never be in any way like that. "
Never
Way
Person
" 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. "
Sword
King
Uncle
" Most of my books have been written in the form of fantasy. "
Been
Form
Books
" My concern is how we learn to be genuine human beings. "
Learn
Concern
Human
" My family pleaded with me to forget literature and do something sensible, such as find some sort of useful work. "
Me
Family
Forget
" My imagination can do whatever it wants to do. This gives me a great sense of freedom. "
Me
Imagination
Sense
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