“If reading becomes a bore, mental death is on the way. Children taught to read by tedious mechanical means rapidly learn to skim over the dull text without bothering to delve into its implications – which in time will make them prey to propaganda and to assertions based on scanty evidence, or none.”
“On imagination,” Lecture delivered at Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's literature (No date provided, c.1975-1986) in Innocence & experience: Essays & Conversations on Children's Literature, eds. Barbara Harrison & Gregory Maguire, New York, NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1987, p. 57