Richard Peck (writer) - Quotes

Quotes

"The only way you can write by the light of the bridges burning behind you." -Richard Peck, at a PEN panel in NYC, Feb. 8, 2010. "Ironically, it was my students who taught me to be a writer, though I had been hired to teach them," he said in a speech published in Arkansas Libraries."They taught me that a novel must entertain first before it can be anthing else. I learned that there is no such thing as a 'grade reading level'; a young person's 'reading level' and attention span will rise and fall according to his degree of interest. I learned that if you do not have a happy ending for the young, you had better do some fast talking."

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