Quotes by Patricia MacLachlan

About Patricia MacLachlan:

Patricia "Patty" MacLachlan is an American children's writer, who is best known for the 1986 Newbery Medal-winning novel Sarah, Plain and Tall which was later adapted as a TV movie starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Fact and fiction are different truths.

Patricia MacLachlan

...there are some things for which there are no answers, no matter how beautiful the words may be.

Patricia MacLachlan

Sometimes poetry--words--give us a small, lovely look at ourselves. And sometimes that is enough.

Patricia MacLachlan

My mother, as a girl, had remembered this woman from Maine, someone who was part of the extended family somehow, and I recall her talking about this great, risk-taking woman. There are the most amazing, heroic stories in everybody's lives.

Patricia MacLachlan

Where else," I will say, "does an old turtle crossing the path Make all the difference in the world?

Patricia MacLachlan

This is important to writing. . . that is, it is important to my own writing. This. . . is landscape! Mine. This dirt came from the prairie where I was a child. I played in it, dug in it, planted in it, and walked over it. It is where I began. And al...

Patricia MacLachlan

Some words may make you happy, some may make you said. Maybe some will make you angry. What I hope. . . what I hope is that something will whisper in your ear.

Patricia MacLachlan

I think what happens is you write how you grew up. And I was born on the prairie, and so everything is kind of spare on the prairie. And so I'm just used to writing in that way. 'Sarah, Plain and Tall' was that way. And most of my fiction is. I like ...

Patricia MacLachlan

I think it's important to remember where I began. I know that when I talk to other writers, say, writers from the South or writers from abroad, it's where they begin as children that is important to them.

Patricia MacLachlan

Being married to a psychologist, I realize that I learn more from imperfections.

Patricia MacLachlan

I'm working on a bunch of things with my daughter Emily. In some ways, she's a smarter and better editor than I am.

Patricia MacLachlan

In a way, my childhood was one long bunch of pages... I read and read and read.

Patricia MacLachlan

I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'

Patricia MacLachlan

Looking back, I see that I write books about brothers and sisters, about what makes up a family, what works and what is nurturing.

Patricia MacLachlan

I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers.

Patricia MacLachlan

I have great editors, and I always have. Somehow, great editors ask the right questions or pose things to you that get you to write better. It's a dance between you, your characters, and your editor.

Patricia MacLachlan

I can always tell when I'm about to start writing. I go through cycles in reading. When I'm beginning to start to write something, I start reading what I think of as good literature. I read things with wonderful language.

Patricia MacLachlan

My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we don't really get jealous, we get inspired, and that'...

Patricia MacLachlan

I don't think I do any formal research. Life is my research. I always begin with a character. I write a chapter about the character and what he or she is doing, thinking, but I don't know what the story is about yet. Plot was always my downfall until...

Patricia MacLachlan

Each time I write a new piece, whether a novel, a picture book, a speech or anything, really, it has so much to do with what I'm going through personally or a problem I'm trying to work out. When I wrote my novel 'Baby,' my three children had all jus...

Patricia MacLachlan

Author Bio

  • NamePatricia MacLachlan
  • DescriptionAmerican writer of children's books
  • BornMarch 3, 1938
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter
  • AwardsNewbery Medal; National Humanities Medal