Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I'm working on a bunch of things with my daughter Emily. In some ways, she's a smarter and better editor than I am. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Better
I Am
Working
Related Quotes:
" Looking back, I see that I write books about brothers and sisters, about what makes up a family, what works and what is nurturing. "
Patricia MacLachlan
See
Family
Back
" My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we don't really get jealous, we get inspired, and that's kind of the mark of what a good writer is. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Writing
Good
Find
" I love to talk to children about making mistakes. It's important that I tell them about how I don't get it right the first time. We live in such a perfectionist society, and they see so many finished products and polished performances. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Love
Time
Mistakes
" I think it's important to remember where I began. I know that when I talk to other writers, say, writers from the South or writers from abroad, it's where they begin as children that is important to them. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Think
Remember
Say
" I never work from an outline, and often I don't know how the story will end. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Will
End
Know
" In a way, my childhood was one long bunch of pages... I read and read and read. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Childhood
Pages
Way
" I think what happens is you write how you grew up. And I was born on the prairie, and so everything is kind of spare on the prairie. And so I'm just used to writing in that way. 'Sarah, Plain and Tall' was that way. And most of my fiction is. I like writing small pieces. Somehow it just suits me. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Me
Small
Suits
" I have great editors, and I always have. Somehow, great editors ask the right questions or pose things to you that get you to write better. It's a dance between you, your characters, and your editor. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Great
Questions
You
" I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Children
Ability
Respect
" I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.' "
Patricia MacLachlan
Book
You
Experience
" Being married to a psychologist, I realize that I learn more from imperfections. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Realize
More
Learn
" My mother, as a girl, had remembered this woman from Maine, someone who was part of the extended family somehow, and I recall her talking about this great, risk-taking woman. There are the most amazing, heroic stories in everybody's lives. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Great
Girl
Woman
" Each time I write a new piece, whether a novel, a picture book, a speech or anything, really, it has so much to do with what I'm going through personally or a problem I'm trying to work out. When I wrote my novel 'Baby,' my three children had all just gone out the door. "
Patricia MacLachlan
Baby
Children
Door