Gary Paulsen

"If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can’t be in books. The book needs you."

"I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books."

"I sail, run dogs, ride horses, play professional poker and tell stories about the stuff I've been through. And I'm still a romantic; I still want Bambi to make it out of the fire."

"I'm a teller of stories. I put bloody skins on my back and dance around the fire, and I say what the hunt was like. It's not erudite; it's not intellectual. I sail, run dogs, ride horses, play professional poker, and tell stories about the stuff I've been through. And I'm still a romantic; I still want Bambi to make it out of the fire."

"I have a pickup truck. And I prefer to be with dogs or on my sailboat than in a car - actually, more than any other place on Earth."

"Adults are locked into car payments and divorces and work. They haven't got time to think fresh."

"I think that what computers have done is just disastrous to the language."

"I tried to contain myself... but I escaped!"