Top 50 Linda Sue Park Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Quitting leads to much less happiness in life than perseverance and hope. Salva Dut.”

— Linda Sue Park

2. “You burn the paper, but not the words. You silence the words, but not the thoughts. You kill the thoughts only if you kill the man. And you will find that his thoughts rise again in the minds of others – twice as strong as before.”

— Linda Sue Park

3. “Salva shouldered his way through the crowd until he was standing in front of the list. He raised his head slowly and began reading through the names. There it was. Salva Dut – Rochester, New York. Salva was going to New York. He was going to America!”

— Linda Sue Park

4. “Map of Sudan, 1985.”

— Linda Sue Park

5. “To young people, I would like to say: Stay calm when things are hard or not going right with you. You will get through it when you persevere instead of quitting. Quitting leads to much less happiness in life than perseverance and hope. Salva Dut Rochester, New York 2010.”

— Linda Sue Park

6. “Reading for writers is like training for athletes.”

— Linda Sue Park

7. “How could memories feel so close and so far away at the same time?”

— Linda Sue Park

8. “If a man is keeping an idea to himself, and that idea is taken by stealth or trickery-I say it is stealing. But once a man has revealed his idea to others, it is no longer his alone. It belongs to the world.”

— Linda Sue Park

9. “I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives.”

— Linda Sue Park

10. “A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.”

— Linda Sue Park

11. “I can give advice to anyone interested in writing in one word: Read! I think it’s much more important to be a reader than to be a writer!”

— Linda Sue Park

12. “I do think that part of literature’s job is to comment on and participate in the social issues of the time.”

— Linda Sue Park

13. “My first publication was a haiku in a children’s magazine when I was 9 years old. I received one dollar for it! I gave the check to my dad for Christmas, and he framed it and hung it over his desk.”

— Linda Sue Park

14. “And she found her voice. “Thank you,” she said, and looked up at him bravely. “Thank you for bringing the water.”

— Linda Sue Park

15. “Libraries hold the wisdom of the world and the stories of the ages – available to everyone, free of charge!”

— Linda Sue Park

16. “But the truth might as well not exist to those who refuse to believe it.”

— Linda Sue Park

17. “Stay calm when things are hard or not going right with you. You will get through it when you persevere instead of quitting.”

— Linda Sue Park

18. “Her sickness came from the water,” the nurse explained. “She should drink only good clean water. If the water is dirty, you should boil it for a count of two hundred before she drinks.”

— Linda Sue Park

19. “Why was it that pride and foolishness were so often close companions?”

— Linda Sue Park

20. “I often have trouble falling asleep at night, so when I’m lying in bed I think up stories. That’s where I do a lot of my thinking. I also get a lot of ideas while I’m reading – sometimes reading someone else’s stories will make me think of one of my own.”

— Linda Sue Park

21. “And one day at a time, the group made its way to Kenya. More than twelve hundred boys arrived safely. It took them a year and a half.”

— Linda Sue Park

22. “More than twelve hundred boys arrived safely. It took them a year and a half.”

— Linda Sue Park

23. “The line between passionate and crazy can be a thin one.”

— Linda Sue Park

24. “It was all about words. If words weren’t important, they wouldn’t try so hard to take them away.”

— Linda Sue Park

25. “A journey, eh?” Crane-man continued whittling. “It is a good thing for a man to see the world if he can. Where will you go?”

— Linda Sue Park

26. “God bless Interlibrary Loan. I pay a lot of library fines. In the case of ‘A Single Shard,’ I was using books that hadn’t been checked out in 30 years, so I didn’t feel too bad.”

— Linda Sue Park

27. “In my family and among Korean-Americans, there just is no occasion that people would get together without bibimbap. It’s something that people eat when they’re wanting to celebrate or have a good time with friends.”

— Linda Sue Park

28. “The bag sprang a leak. The leak had to be patched. The patch sprang a leak. The crew patched the patch. Then the bag sprang another leak. The drilling could not go on.”

— Linda Sue Park

29. “All my books take a long time to research. I spend several months researching before I start writing, and in the middle of writing I often have to stop and look up stuff. At my local library, I am one of the best customers! The research takes several months.”

— Linda Sue Park

30. “Salva had been in Rochester for more than six years now. He was going to college and had decided to study business. He had a vague idea that he would like to return to Sudan someday, to help the people who lived there.”

— Linda Sue Park

31. “What I like most: Reading well-written sources that take me to another world for hours at a time – and being able to call that work! Also, of course, finding a gem of information that is either exactly what I was looking for, or else fits perfectly into the story in some way.”

— Linda Sue Park

32. “There was always plenty of fruit that clung stubbornly to the seed. He would nibble and suck at it to get every last shred, making it last for hours.”

— Linda Sue Park

33. “Women,” Nellie answered. “Women kicking butt all over the place.”

— Linda Sue Park

34. “Girls. The oldest mystery in the universe.”

— Linda Sue Park

35. “I am happy to meet you, Nya,” he said. “My name is Salva.”

— Linda Sue Park

36. “Fire and falling water. Always the same, yet always changing.”

— Linda Sue Park

37. “Most writers adore their editors, and I’m no exception.”

— Linda Sue Park

38. “Every story has another story inside, but you don’t usually get to read the inside one. It’s deleted or torn up or maybe filed away before the story becomes a book...”

— Linda Sue Park

39. “Meet Madeleine Cahill,” he said. “Founder of the Madrigal line.”

— Linda Sue Park

40. “So sad,” Victor said, “the things people will do to each other.” Dan sat back against the seat cushion and let out a sharp breath.”

— Linda Sue Park

41. “We can’t, little cricket. It is against the law to fly this flag – even to put up a picture of it. Korea is part of the Japanese Empire now. But someday this will be our own country once more. Your own country.”

— Linda Sue Park

42. “I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road.”

— Linda Sue Park

43. “That’s one of Patrick’s favorite theories. He read somewhere that people remember stuff better if they read or think about it right before they fall asleep.”

— Linda Sue Park

44. “I have chosen the way of my death, which is something few of us are privileged to do.”

— Linda Sue Park

45. “They patched the bag again. The drilling went on.”

— Linda Sue Park

46. “Maybe praying was another way to practice hope.”

— Linda Sue Park

47. “How much slower the work went when the joy of it was gone.”

— Linda Sue Park

48. “No!” Nellie said fiercely. “I got into it because of the money. But now –.”

— Linda Sue Park

49. “Nya sat outside in the shade of the house and ate.”

— Linda Sue Park

50. “Think carefully first, and then act boldly.”

— Linda Sue Park