A joy that hurts with sadness sadness that is pleasurable pleasure full of terror terror that excites an excitement that calms calmness that frightens.

— Aidan Chambers

All the time I think I can never love you more than I already do. And then you do something or say something, and I love you more than ever. Like just now. Like now. How is it possible? Can you love someone more and more and at the same time, all the time, love them as much as it's possible to love someone?

— Aidan Chambers

And trust dies from ifs and buts

— Aidan Chambers

Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people's books, one's own books - it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments - and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable.

— Aidan Chambers

He thought: How difficult it is to explain yourself to yourself. Sometimes there only is, and no knowing.

— Aidan Chambers

I asked Gertrude the other day what she thought love is-real love, true love. She said that for her real love is observing another person and being observed by another person with complete attention. If she's right, you only have to look at the pictures Rembrandt painted of Titus, and there are quite a lot, to see that they loved each other. Because that is what you're seeing. Complete attention, one of the other..."but in that case," he said, speaking the words as the thought came to him, "all art is love, because all art is about looking closely, isn't it? Looking closely at what's being painted."" The artist looking closely while he paints, the viewer looking closely at what has been painted. I agree. All true art, yes. Painting, Writing-literature-also. I think it is. And bad art is a failure to observe with complete attention. So, you see why I like the history of art. It's the study of how to observe life with complete attention. It's the history of love.

— Aidan Chambers

I cannot live without reading.

— Aidan Chambers

I don’t actually think “true love” is such a good term because love can only be true. If it isn’t true it can’t be love.

— Aidan Chambers

I don't just want to ban The Bomb. I want to ban all bombs, whatever, and all bombers, whoever, and all bombings, whyever. There have to be better ways of saying no and making changes.

— Aidan Chambers

If we try to measure Now, we find it's always gone, has become part of the past.

— Aidan Chambers