Malorie Blackman Quotes

"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while."

"I don't believe in regrets. There are a few things I'd do differently, but I can't go back in time and redo them, however much I might wish to. All I can do is learn from past mistakes and move forward."

"You can have all the talent in the world, but without determination, you won't get very far."

"When life knocks you down, keep getting up."

"Books allow you to see the world through the eyes of others."

"Life isn't about quantity, it's about quality."

"I believe each individual can have a say and make a difference."

"Any anxieties publishers have about putting a child on the front cover of a book who isn't white is very old fashioned."

"I believe we need more culturally diverse books - about disabled characters, though not about their disability, about people with different sexual orientations, or a boy who is a cross-dresser. We need to reflect the diversity of our society."

"The worst thing about being the laureate has been the attitude of a tiny minority of adults who haven't liked some of the things I'm supposed to have said and who have used it as an opportunity to be verbally abusive and nasty, but I haven't let it rule my world!"

"We had a few non-fiction books at home, but my dad was of the opinion that fiction was a complete and utter waste of time because it wasn't real - so what was the point of reading it?"

"I remember, when I was at school, we would have a 10-minute storytelling session where we'd all sit on the floor cross-legged, and the teacher would read. It became something we all really looked forward to. That was part of the reason I grew to love stories."

"What I would like to do is make sure every primary school child has a library card, so where parents don't get their children library cards, we'll see if we can get schools to step in and make sure that every child has one."

"I would like to use stories as a springboard for children to make their own creative responses. I would like to encourage them to express themselves using music, art, film or whatever, and upload it to a website having been inspired by particular stories."

"Part of my job as Children's Laureate is to visit schools and talk about my love of books and stories and encourage them all to do it as well - to read, to write, to never be afraid of their own voice. Because we all have something to say."

"I suppose I've always lived in my own head. I didn't discover boys till sixth form. Then suddenly it was, 'Oh! Boys!'"

"I work in my attic, and the view is next door's chimney stack."

"A film of my life would never happen!"

"I remember going into a bookshop, and the only book I saw with a black child on the cover was 'A Thief in the Village' by James Berry, and I thought, 'Is this still the state of publishing?' Then I thought, 'Either I can whine about it or try to do something about it.'"

"I wanted to have a body of work behind me before I wrote about racism."

"I remember being in a history lesson and saying to my teacher, 'How come you never talk about black scientists and inventors and pioneers?' And she looked at me and said, 'Because there aren't any.'"

"History should belong to all of us, and it needs to include people from different cultural backgrounds. Otherwise, it risks becoming irrelevant to children, who could then become disenchanted with education."

"Teenagers are some of the most passionate, dynamic and creative people I know. Yet, too often, this creative spark is left to flicker precariously and sometimes fade entirely."

"I think fan fiction is the way most writers start, and the same goes for music and design."

"When I wrote 'Noughts and Crosses', I was halfway through it when I realised this was very like 'Romeo and Juliet'... as long as you make it your own, and put your own spin on it, I think it's brilliant to use other great work to find your own voice."

"What I wanted to do was use literature and different kinds of stories and poems as a springboard, tapping into the creativity of our teens - I wanted teenagers to come up with their own creative responses to literature - using books themselves as a starting point."

"What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well."

"I personally, as a teenager, didn't like books I felt were trying to preach to me... I did not believe in happy endings. I wanted to read books which reflected life as I thought I knew it."

"I think what we need, especially in publishing, is more commissioning editors and editors who are people of colour."

"We need more people working in the publishing industry itself who are people of colour."