When the Whispering Mountain shall scream aloud And the…

A children's writer should, ideally, be a dedicated semi-lunatic, a kind of poet with a marvelous idea, who, preferably, when not committing the marvellous…

— Joan Aiken

“Why do we want to have alternate worlds? It's a way of making progress. ”

— Joan Aiken

You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew…

— Joan Aiken

“They came to the high stone shaft with the face of Sul; they descended to the terrace below. And here Caradog waited, leaning on…

— Joan Aiken

“He paused a moment, gazing in awe at the huge mass of buildings composing the castle. It stood close to the river, on either…

— Joan Aiken

since each child reads only about six hundred books in the course of childhood, each book should nourish them in some way - with…

— Joan Aiken

Words are like spices. Too many is worse than too few.

— Joan Aiken

“the silence behind her was closing and thickening, and becoming coloured, like water into which a brilliant dye is being poured”

— Joan Aiken

The first book that a child reads has a colossal impact.

— Joan Aiken

Sudden wealth was the great insulator, second only to sudden bereavement.

— Joan Aiken

“It was dusk - winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay…

— Joan Aiken

“She thought about Penny’s stories. There was one about a man who had three wishes and married a swan. If I had three wishes,…

— Joan Aiken

As cows need milking and sweet peas need picking, so writers must continually exercise their mental muscles by a daily stint.

— Joan Aiken

“Eat an apple,sing a song, Don't touch a snake as it wriggles along. Run for an hour, walk for a day, Hark to the…

— Joan Aiken

If reading becomes a bore, mental death is on the way. Children taught to read by tedious mechanical means rapidly learn to skim over…

— Joan Aiken