Judy Blume

“The list of gifted teachers and librarians who find their jobs in jeopardy for defending their students' right to read, to imagine, to question, grows every year.”

“I am such a rewriter; I have so many notebooks filled with drafts you wouldn't believe.”

“When I'm writing, I'm never trying to teach anything - maybe I'm trying to illuminate.”

“I am a big defender of 'Harry Potter,' and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them.”

“We must, we must, we must increase our bust.”

“Parents still have a big influence on their kids - just ask any therapist. No, really, I think the parent is the most important influence on children: It's how they learn to love and treat other people.”

“My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book about them. Then, they become so real to me I talk about them at the dinner table as if they are real. Some people consider this weird. But my family understands.”

“Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.”

“My husband and I like to reminisce about how, when we were 9, we read straight through L. Frank Baum's 'Oz' series, books filled with wizards and witches. And you know what those subversive tales taught us? That we loved to read!”

“I wrote 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' right out of my own experiences and my own feelings when I was in sixth grade.”

“I love to watch movies.”

“The child from nine to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing.”

“The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.”

“...I used to think if you read enough books you'd automatically know how to do everything the right way. But reading and doing are not the same at all.”

“I'll always be grateful for 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.' It brought me many, many, readers.”

“The women's movement was slow in coming to suburban New Jersey.”

“Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time' has been targeted by censors for promoting New Ageism, and Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' for promoting racism. Gee, where does that leave the kids?”

“When I lock myself up to write, I cannot allow myself to think about the censor or the reviewer or anyone but my characters and their story!”

“A person can have a happy and fulfilling life without children.”

“I'm very good at setting goals and deadlines for myself, so I don't really need that from outside.”