Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I seemed to have been born reading.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I think writing is an extension of a childhood habit - the habit of entertaining oneself by taking interesting bits of reality and building upon them.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

At the age of eight I became, in my own eyes at least, a writer.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

There are several peculiarities that I share with children which, like having no front teeth, are perhaps more acceptable in the very young, but which, for better or worse, seem to be a part of my makeup.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with ten or eleven years of experience as human beings. It is, I think, a magical time - when so much has been learned, but not yet enough to entirely extinguish the magical reach and freedom of early childhood.