Lloyd Alexander Quotes

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Lloyd Alexander

Profession : Writer

Birth : January 30, 1924

We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.

Lloyd Alexander

Perhaps one reason we are fascinated by cats is because such a small animal can contain so much independence, dignity, and freedom of spirit. Unlike the dog, the cat's personality is never bet on a human's. He demands acceptance on his own terms.

Lloyd Alexander

I was afraid that not even Merlin the Enchanter could transform me into a writer.

Lloyd Alexander

I first wrote for adults, but when I started writing for young people, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life. I was able to express my own deepest feelings far more than I ever could when writing for adults.

Lloyd Alexander

I guess there's only two possible places ideas can come from. One is the outside: everything that happens to you and everything that you do in life. And the other is the inside part: your own personality and imagination, and no two people are alike, like fingerprints.

Lloyd Alexander

Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them.

Lloyd Alexander

In whatever guise - our own daily nightmares of war, intolerance, inhumanity or the struggles of an Assistant Pig-Keeper against the Lord of Death - the problems are agonizingly familiar. And an openness to compassion, love, and mercy is as essential to us here and now as it is to any inhabitant of an imaginary kingdom.

Lloyd Alexander

My parents were horrified when I told them I wanted to be an author.

Lloyd Alexander

My family pleaded with me to forget literature and do something sensible, such as find some sort of useful work.

Lloyd Alexander

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.

Lloyd Alexander

I loved all the world's mythologies.

Lloyd Alexander

King Arthur was one of my heroes - I played with a trash can lid for a knightly shield and my uncle's cane for the sword Excalibur.

Lloyd Alexander

After I saved some money, I quit work and went to a local college.

Lloyd Alexander

I decided that adventure was the best way to learn about writing.

Lloyd Alexander

It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army.

Lloyd Alexander

Eventually, I was sent to Wales and Germany, and after the war, to Paris.

Lloyd Alexander

When I was discharged, I attended the University of Paris and met a beautiful Parisian girl, Janine. We soon married and eventually returned to the States.

Lloyd Alexander

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.

Lloyd Alexander

Most of my books have been written in the form of fantasy.

Lloyd Alexander

Using the device of an imaginary world allows me in some strange way to go to the central issues - it's one of many ways to express feelings about real people, about real human relationships.

Lloyd Alexander