All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.

— Katherine Paterson

Church always seemed the same. Jess could tune it out the same way he tuned out school, with his body standing up and sitting down in unison with the rest of the congregation but his mind numb and floating, not really thinking or dreaming but at least free.

— Katherine Paterson

Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed an enormous amount of freedom ordinary people are denied

— Katherine Paterson

Everybody gets sometimes scared, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed.

— Katherine Paterson

Fear is one thing. To let fear grab you and swing you around by the tail is another.

— Katherine Paterson

Hope ... is not a feeling it is something you do.

— Katherine Paterson

If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.

— Katherine Paterson

I have been mocked by beauty, too. But it was the beauty which cost me nothing that in the end turned upon me.

— Katherine Paterson

... I just gave up trying to be a Christian... Let's face it, I ain't got the knack for holiness. Besides, I didn't have the slightest little desire to join the likes of Reverend Pelham at the dinner table for fourteen minutes, much less at the banquet table of Heaven eternally. Eternity is a mighty long time to be stuck with people who judge every word you say and think and condemn most of what you do. It struck me as pretty miserable company. And if Reverend Pelham was the kind of company God preferred to keep, well, I just hoped they'd be happy together.

— Katherine Paterson

I love revisions… We can’t go back and revise our lives, but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest.

— Katherine Paterson