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!
Judy BlumeRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Parents can influence their children's reading choices, but should not dictate what others can read.
Judy Blume emphasizes the importance of freedom in reading and learning. While parents may have their preferences regarding what their own children should read, they do not have the authority to restrict the reading choices of other children, promoting the idea that access to diverse literature is vital for all young readers.
Themes
ReadingFreedomEducationChildrenLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
In a school board meeting discussing book bans.
More from Judy Blume
All quotes βWhat I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.
Judy BlumeRead
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.
Judy BlumeRead
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
Judy BlumeRead
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.
Judy BlumeRead
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 Besides, as soon as you put something 'electronic' in a book, it's already out of date by the time it's published: everything will have changed.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.
Judy BlumeRead
Similar quotes
School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.
Ivan IllichRead
Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.
Lionel ShriverRead
High School is the place where poetry goes to die.
Billy CollinsRead
Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child.
Maria MontessoriRead
It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.
Alain De BottonRead
All children are artists, and it is an indictment of our culture that so many of them lose their creativity, their unfettered imaginations, as they grow older.
Madeleine L'EngleRead