Life & Wisdom Quote by Margaret Haddix

There is a mischievous honesty in Haddix admitting that the real thrill of fiction isn’t lofty moral instruction; it’s the godlike glee of building a world from scratch and getting away with it. The line reads like a defense of play at a time when writers, especially in children’s and YA spaces, are often asked to justify themselves with “messages” and “relevance.” Haddix quietly sidesteps that bargain. She centers pleasure, agency, and invention as the engine of the work.

The subtext is craft-based but also political in a small-p way: freedom and flexibility aren’t just aesthetic perks, they’re survival tools. Haddix’s novels frequently hinge on constrained lives and controlled information; in that context, her emphasis on “do whatever I want” lands as a counterweight to the systems her characters fight. Writing becomes the one arena where the rules can be rewritten, where consequences can be staged safely, and where curiosity is allowed to run without permission.

The quote also functions as an invitation to readers. By foregrounding fabrication - characters, situations, “everything else” - she demystifies storytelling, framing it less as a sacred talent than an act of imaginative choice. That matters in YA culture, where author personas can feel aspirational but distant. Haddix’s intent is to make creativity sound accessible and exhilarating: not a burden, not a brand, but a kind of sanctioned rebellion.