Judy Blume

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!

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

What can happen if a young reader picks up a book he/she isn't yet ready for? Questions, maybe. Usually, that child puts down the book and says, 'Boring.' Or, 'I'm not ready for this.' Kids are really good at knowing what they can handle.

Concentrate on how good if feels to be alive. No matter what. Just to see the color of the sky, just to smell the air, and feel the wind in your face

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.

Nobody ever asks me why my characters don't text each other. Besides, as soon as you put something 'electronic' in a book, it's already out of date by the time it's published: everything will have changed. Human emotion, on the other hand, will never change.

I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.

[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 am not sure that the inner world of teenage girls has changed. What's most important to kids today is still the same stuff.

My mother told me once that she had her talk with God whenever she started a new sweater: 'Please don't take me in the middle of the sweater.' And as soon as she finished knitting a sweater, and it was blocked and put together, she already had the wool to start the next sweater so that nothing bad would happen.

I know it's working when I'm writing a book if I'm laughing or crying.

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.

It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written.

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

I think people who write for kids, we have that ability to go back into our own lives.

Anybody who says, 'My childhood was completely happy,' is a person who isn't remembering the truth.

When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside.

Here's the thing: If you don't want your kids to read a book, fine. You can tell them not to read a book, and maybe they will and maybe they won't. But you can't say what other kids can read.

I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there.

Everybody wants to share life and be in love and be loved.

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