Quotes from Judy Blume

My father was the youngest of seven, and nobody lived to be 60. And so we were always sitting shiva in my house, and my father would say, 'Life goes on.'

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.

I always have trouble with titles for my books. I usually have no title until the editor has to present the book and calls me frantically, 'Judy, we need a title.'

I stop and think before I start a new book and ask myself do I really want to spend the next year or two or three with these characters because if I don't, then I shouldn't be writing about them.

When I was first writing, my little prayers were, 'Please, please, please. Let something be published someday.' Then it went to, 'Please, please, please. Let somebody read this.'

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

In 1970, somebody once asked me whether I thought my books would still be around in 40 years, and I thought, 'How would I know, and why would I care?' Well, it turns out I really do care.

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?

I was Little Miss Perfect. That's where all the secrets come in, because you know damn well you are not perfect, but you think your parents want you to be. And so you pretend.

I was shy, but I stood up in front of the class and I gave my report.I was reporting on books that I didn't want to read. I was inventing books that I didn't want to read.

Kids should read whatever they want to read. So I'm hoping that just like 15-year-olds read "Summer Sisters," I'm hoping that they'll read this.

I'm a more skilled writer now, but after 23 books it's harder to be fresh and that's really important to me. I don't want to write the same thing over and over again.

Do you think just having a baby automatically makes you love it?''I'm not sure... you might have to learn to love it, like any other person.

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.

When I began to write and used a typewriter, I went through three drafts of a book before showing it to an editor.

We're supposed to be uncomfortable when we read something. That's how we learn.

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.

Fear is contagious, and those who wish America to become a faith-based society are doing their best to spread it.

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.

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 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.

I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.

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

I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best . . . once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture.