Top 25 Rebecca Stead Quotes

I try to write about internal experience versus the external self. I like to present ideas, but not package them neatly.

The wonderful thing about writing fiction is that no one is stopping you. There’s no one saying, ‘You can’t do that.’

I do try to write in ways that reflect reality, and I think that reality is rarely simple.

My kids really like food, and they like to cook, so it’s a lot of fun to shop with them.

From age nine, my friends and I were on the streets, walking home, going to each other’s houses, going to the store. I really wanted to write about that: the independence that’s a little bit scary but also a really positive thing in a lot of ways.

I felt vulnerable and very much between friends. I remember walking down the hallway and thinking I had no way of knowing what was coming, literally. This wasn’t because I had some horrific bullying story, but because of a steady drip of negativity.

I’ve met seven homeschooling families through many, many extracurricular activities such as fencing. I don’t have a point of view of homeschooling. For some families, homeschooling works.

I asked myself what it was that I wanted from writing and where my connection with books began, and the answer to that question was definitely in childhood, because that’s where my connection with reading began.

Probably because I really love this bookmaking and storytelling world, I’d been thinking for years about the possibility of becoming a literary agent.

I’m always thinking about identity. And the middle-school years are a time of exploring questions about who you are and who you want to be. For the first time, you see the world in a broader sense.

I think that kids are a wonderful, wonderful reader to have in your head.

I loved reading all kinds of books, but I particularly loved books like ‘Red Planet’ by Robert Heinlein, which very few people read anymore but is a wonderful science fiction story.

On Sunday, I think the most important thing for me is to just turn my brain off. The idea of not trying is the key, because that’s where you’re relaxed enough to let your brain make new connections.

I am hoping to work with writers publishing books for first time, since I of course remember what that experience is like. It’s all a bit of a mystery for new authors who don’t know what to expect.

My books tend to have a lot of questions in them, and they tend to avoid black and white, for lack of a better metaphor.

During the week,I’m really focused on writing and output. Sunday is a day when I really try not to write at all.

A lot of my ideas for books come from newspaper articles. But I don’t like to be actively looking for ideas.

I think of ‘Liar & Spy’ as completely different and actually not at all like a ‘When You Reach Me’-type story. I feel like ‘Liar & Spy’ has a much quieter, more emotional revelation.

I think that’s one of the most important things that books do: not to teach you anything, but to help you teach yourself by just being in the world of the book and having your own thoughts and reactions and noticing your own reactions and thoughts and learning about yourself that way.

I try to remember what it was like to be a kid in New York. I lived in different parts of my childhood in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, where ‘When You Reach Me’ is set, and also in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

I would never look a gift horse in the mouth. I’ve had some lovely homemade earrings and, recently, a wall hanging made in the style of Georges Seurat.

‘Middle school’ is used as shorthand for a time when things change. It’s a time a lot of kids feel like they don’t even have one good friend.

I think we must all feel that there are people out there who know things about our young selves, you know, our early, early lives, that no one else can ever know.

There was a boy in my building who was my best friend when I was growing up. There was also a mysterious person on my corner who we called the Laughing Man.

I never had a favourite book! I liked all kinds of things – science fiction, so I read Heinlen and Ray Bradbury, and I also liked reading about kids like myself, so I read Judy Blume and Norma Klein and Paula Danzinger and a lot of other writers. I also read James Herriot!