Natalie Babbitt
Natalie Babbitt
Natalie Babbitt is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. For her contributions as a children's writer, she was U.S. nominee for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1982...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth28 July 1932
CityDayton, OH
CountryUnited States of America
rocks dying useless
Living's heavy work, but off to one side, the way we are, it's useless, too. It don't make sense. If I knowed how to climb back on the wheel, I'd do it in a minute. You can't have living without dying. So you can't call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.
editor encouraged hard knew verse written
The first two books that I did by myself were long stories in verse. I knew I could do that because I'd written a lot in verse. But, verse stories are hard to sell, so my editor encouraged me to try writing in prose.
believe books children credit experience fantasy far interested kinds perceptive possibilities time
I write for children because I am interested in fantasy and the possibilities for experience of all kinds before the time of compromise. I believe that children are far more perceptive and wise than American books give them credit for being.
art artistic best drawer except fairly genius good grade mother passed second
My mother was an artist, and I was fairly good at art as a child. I was always the best drawer in class, except in second grade when an artistic genius passed through our school!
wrote
My husband wrote the story for my first book, but then he didn't want to do that anymore. So if I was going to go on being an illustrator, I had to start writing the stories, too.
astronomer good high twice
I have always loved astronomy, and being an astronomer once lurked in the back of my mind. But I was never good at algebra. In fact, I flunked it twice in high school.
art cleveland grew laurel school smith studied
I grew up wanting only to be an illustrator. I studied art at Laurel School in Cleveland and at Smith College.
childhood money prominent sister though wonderful
I had a wonderful mother who wanted my sister and me to have everything, even though money was a very prominent thing we didn't have. But we had a very happy childhood - pretty much ideal, in fact.
beings certainly human war
We human beings do a lot of dumb things, and war is certainly the dumbest.
book home hurry school
I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a book illustrator. I used to hurry home from school and draw.
philosophy simple magnificent
Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.
blessing dying pieces
But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing.
forever just-live live-forever
You dont have to live forever just live.
dream branches facts
Facts are the barren branches on which we hang the dear, obscuring foliage of our dreams.