Judy Blume

“I was wildly interested in puberty as a child.”

“I dread first drafts! I worry each day that it won't come, that nothing will happen.”

“[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”

“I have a great T-shirt that I received at the New Jersey Hall of Fame when I was inducted. It says - it makes me choke up - it says, 'I'm a Jersey tomato'... I am. I am a Jersey girl and proud of it.”

“The creative process; I enjoy thinking up the stories and situations for my books.”

“Telling kids the truth isn't always entirely possible, but talking to them is.”

“I loved 'Moneyball,' I thought that was a great Hollywood movie. I like baseball, but I don't know that you have to like baseball to like that. I thought it was really well done.”

“Many of my books are set in New Jersey because that's where I was born and raised. I lived there until my kids finished elementary school. Then we moved to New Mexico, the setting for 'Tiger Eyes.'”

“I'm an optimistic person, so I like to leave my readers with a sense of hopefulness.”

“When I started to write, it was the '70s, and throughout that decade, we didn't have any problems with book challenges or censorship.”

“I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.”

“In sixth grade, I made up books to give book reports on.”

“People need stories; they want stories. They always will.”

“I think divorce is a tragedy, traumatic and horribly painful for everybody. That's why I wrote 'Smart Women.' I want kids to read that and to think what life might be like for their parents. And I want parents to think about what life is like for their kids.”

“When I see kids standing next to their mothers at book signings, clutching a copy of 'Forever,' I know what's coming. They'll say to me, 'How old do I have to be to read this?' hoping I'll give them permission. But I can't do that.”

“The truth will make you odd.”

“At the time I wrote 'Forever,' I had a 14-year-old daughter, and she was reading a lot of books about young love.”

“I am not scared of you, I am scare of these feelings.”

“It's good to have fantasies and creative fantasies, especially.”

“I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!”