A children's writer should, ideally, be a dedicated semi-lunatic, a kind of poet with a marvelous idea, who, preferably, when not committing the marv…

- Joan Aiken

If reading becomes a bore, mental death is on the way. Children taught to read by tedious mechanical means rapidly learn to skim over the dull text w…

- Joan Aiken

The first book that a child reads has a colossal impact.

- Joan Aiken

As cows need milking and sweet peas need picking, so writers must continually exercise their mental muscles by a daily stint.

- Joan Aiken

Sudden wealth was the great insulator, second only to sudden bereavement.

- Joan Aiken

You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew that if you left two men toget…

- Joan Aiken

Children read to learn - even when they are reading fantasy, nonsense, light verse, comics or the copy on cereal packets, they are expanding their mi…

- Joan Aiken

Stories ought not to be just little bits of fantasy that are used to wile away an idle hour; from the beginning of the human race stories have been u…

- Joan Aiken

Why do we want to have alternate worlds? It's a way of making progress. You have to imagine something before you do it.

- Joan Aiken