Terri

“The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”
― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

“Still. Four words.

And I didn’t realize it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog:

Dear Neil,

If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children’s area, what would it be?

Thanks!

Lynn

I pondered a bit. I’d said a lot about books and kids’ reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could. And then it hit me, and this is what I wrote:

I’m not sure I’d put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I’d just remind people of the power of stories, and why they exist in the first place. I’d put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show that it’s working, and that pages will be turned:

“… and then w”
― Neil Gaiman, Stories: All-New Tales

“Other people’s judgments were meaningless unless you allowed them to mean something.”
― Alice Hoffman, The Rules of Magic

“Everything here is edible; even I'm edible. But that, dear children, is cannibalism, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies.”
― Johnny Depp