'Death at an Early Age' was about racial segregation in Boston. 'Illiterate America' was about grownups who can't read. 'Rachel and Her Children' was about people who were homeless in the middle of Manhattan.
Children want to do what grownups do.
We all know how tough children are with toys. It turns out grownups are much worse.
There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not.
Children are far more interesting to work with than grownups. They're incredibly honest. They'll tell you exactly what they think.
Some people have told me that I'm grumpy; it's not something that I'm aware of. It's not like I walk around poking children in the eye... not very small ones, anyway.
I like to be loved by my children, and I quite like the Guardian hating me.
I like to be loved by my children, and I quite like the 'Guardian' hating me. I like it when I read they want me to die painfully. Then I think I've really got under their skin. It's like annoying a teacher. Once they've shown signs of weakness, you really can go for them.
God is never on the sidelines of His children's lives. He goes before them. He leads them, guides them, protects and saves them.
During the Gulf War, I remember two little third grade girls saying to me - after I read them some poems by writers in Iraq - 'You know, we never thought about there being children in Iraq before.' And I thought, 'Well those poems did their job, because now they'll think about everything a little bit differently.'
As the mother teaches her children how to express themselves in their language, so one Gypsy musician teaches the other. They have never shown any need for notation.
I can't think of anything I regret. Everything I've done, I've enjoyed doing. I've had five husbands, four children. I've done it all, but mainly I've enjoyed studying fish and being underwater with them, being in their natural habitat, looking at the fish and the fish looking at me.
My mother had had six children in five and a half years, and three of them died in that time.
It's extraordinary what children put up with. I happened to see two of my uncles put my father up against the wall of my grandmother's house and knock his teeth out, because he'd been unpleasant to my mother. The next day I went upstairs and found my father making a rather half-hearted attempt to gas himself.
The walls of our upstairs hallway testify that we once had photogenic children. There are rows of framed pictures that show them playing baseball, basketball, holding a toad, and smiling in the sunlight at their eager parents. Everything is orderly and bright.
Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
Every day, new laws are created that further hamper the ways children can engage with the world.
Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.
When you have children, you realize that at the end, it's all about passing on, about handing down.
I like to do everything myself - I'm very hands-on with my housekeeping, my children, travelling, how I do things.
