My Writing Comes From Ideas

We Humans Have Had From Time Unknown The Compulsion To Name Things And Thus To Be Able To Deal With Them. The Name We Give To Something Shapes Our Attitude Toward It. And In Ancient Thought The Name Itself Has Power, So That To Know Someone's Name Is To Have A Certain Power Over Him. And In Some Societies, As You Know, There Was A Public Name And A Real Or Secret Name, Which Would Not Be Revealed To Others.

A Good Story Is Alive, Ever Changing And Growing As It Meets Each Listener Or Reader In A Spirited And Unique Encounter, While The Moralistic Tale Is Not Only Dead On Arrival, It's Already Been Embalmed. It's Safer That Way. When A Lively Story Goes Dancing Out To Meet The Imagination Of A Child, The Teller Loses Control Over Meaning. The Child Gets To Decide What The Story Means.

Many People Are Angry When They Make A Mistake, But Very Few People Have The Sense To Be Sorry.

We Can Read The Paper Or Current Magazines And Learn About National And World Events, Think About Controversial Subjects, Learn How To Disagree Respectfully, And How, Finally, To Act On Our Convictions. We Can Read For Pure Delight, And If We Do This As A Family Or Classroom Or Other Group We Can Build Wonderful Memories.

I'm Sure My First Nine Years Have Had A Powerful Influence On The Kind Of Books I Write.