Judy Blume
[When I was a kid] I was a surgeon, amputating legs and arms of my paper dolls. And I had a little board with little tacks that I would tack them down to do this.Collection: Kids
I wasn't interested in the kinds of books that I thought I should be reading.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Book
I wanted to tell him that I will never be sorry for loving him. That in a way I still do - that maybe I always will. I'll never regret one single thing we did together because what we had was very special. Maybe if we were ten years older it would have worked out differently. Maybe. I think it's just that I'm not ready for forever.Collection: Sorry
I thought [books ban] was crazy. Really my thoughts were "This is America, we don't do this here" but of course I know a lot better now. And I wasn't the only one. Norma Klein was writing at the same time. Her books were going. So many of us. When you say to me, no you can't do this I say, oh yes I can.Collection: Crazy
In a New York Post interview, Judy Blume, author of young-adult fiction, gave this advice on getting your kids to read: "Moms come up to me at book signings and describe how they're telling their daughters, 'These were my favorite books,'?" she says. "I say, 'Quit it! That's the biggest turnoff!'"You want to get them to read them, leave them around the house and every so often, say, 'You're not ready to read this yet.'Collection: Mom
I'm a people person. I never get tired of watching people, especially young people.Collection: Tired
I don't really know exactly how it happened but I don't like the idea that I would ever have said I'm going to write about racism or puberty or bullying.Collection: Bullying
When [books ban] happened, I felt completely alone and that was scary and sad.Collection: Book
[With "Summer Sisters" the publisher] sent me on a big book tour. And it was the most wonderful professional experience of my life. I mean it was like Kleenex on every table wherever I was, friends patting friends on the back and they'd cry and I'd cry.Collection: Summer
I know where "Blubber" came from. It came from stories that my daughter told me when she came home from fifth grade. There was a kid in the class who was being bullied. We didn't even call it bullying then, that's what's so weird. Victimization in the classroom. The word bully was so out, was so not in use for all those years and now it's back big time.Collection: Daughter
[Writing] totally changed my life. It gave me my life. Everything opened up.Collection: Writing
you can't deny they ever happened. You can't deny you ever loved them, love them still, even if loving them causes you painCollection: Pain
I don't necessarily want to talk about a book that I read. Even when I love it.Collection: Book
I have like two dreams a week that I have to write a paper that I'm late with or that I've gone back to high school and have to do that in addition to my current job.Collection: Dream
I would make up [Theodor] Seuss-like books at night when I was cleaning up from the dinner, you know, putting these little kids to bed, reading them rhyming books. And so that's what I started doing. They were really bad. I have some in a box and it says on the box, it's a note to my kids you know, when I die, if you ever publish these I will come back and haunt you.Collection: Book
First of all I can only focus on one creative project at a time. I wish I could focus on two, because I really only write.Collection: Writing
That's my anxiety dream. I go to the library and all the books on my subject are out.Collection: Dream
I didn't know I was really a writer until I read it in the New York Times. And then I thought, "Oh my god, maybe I can really do this". That was a review of "Margaret."Collection: New York
It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.Collection: People
"Margaret" was just my truth. It was what I knew to be true about sixth grade.Collection: Sixth Grade
It's so amazing. I mean talk about sexuality changing.Collection: Mean
Snoring keeps the monsters away.Collection: Monsters
My mother was a cracker jack typist. And she would come in and sit at my house and type the final type script before I would then send it to the publisher. And it was nice for us.Collection: Mother
I thought ["Summer Sisters" ] would be a children's book - two girls who summer together from very different backgrounds. And then when it just kept going and going and going. They kept getting older.Collection: Girl
Without peanut butter, I might starve.Collection: Peanut Butter
I do believe that people who write for children are deeply connected to their own childhood.Collection: Children
I've never really thought in terms of taboos. I think that books can really help parents and kids talk together about difficult subjects. I've always felt that way.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Summer
I love you, Michael Wagner.” “Forever?” he asked. “Forever,” I said.Collection: Love You
The parent reads the book. The kid reads the book and then they can talk about the characters instead of talking about themselves. You know there's a connection even if you don't talk about it when you read the same books.Collection: Book
It didn't happen in the 70s. So I had a whole decade when I was writing these books and maybe there was a little bit here or there but there was no big effort to ban books.Collection: Book
We weren't doing blow jobs when I was growing up.Collection: Jobs
If all you leave in the library is books that you think speak to everyone, what are you going to have? You'd have nothing.Collection: Book
Isn't that interesting. All the book clubs. I've never belonged to one.Collection: Book
I think we made out [sexuality changing]. I think that's really great, and we didn't jump into intercourse. And there were no blow jobs.Collection: Jobs
Heavy petting, that was fun! That was good. And frankly, you know I wish kids would go back to it. It's very satisfying. And it's not as scary. So many girls, you know this. I mean they are having what we call sex. Right? They're having intercourse. They don't want to, they don't get anything out of it.Collection: Girl
I never read a horse book in my life. But I thought that's what my friends were reading and that's what I should be reading. And this was "Dobbin Does This" and "Dobbin Does That."Collection: Horse
I never read the "Bobbsey Twins" or "Boxcar Children."But I did remember being downtown, at the bookstore by myself and having an allowance and spending it on a Nancy Drew mysteries. And I was probably eleven, twelve.Collection: Children
The only thing that works with writing is that you care so passionately about it yourself, that you make someone else care passionately about it.Collection: Writing
Suppose there aren't any more A + days once you get to be twelve? Wouldn't that be something! To spend the rest of your life looking for an A + day and not finding it.Collection: Twelve
Caitlyn isn't someone to get over. She's someone to come to terms with, the way you have to come to terms with your parents, your siblings. You can't deny they ever happened. You can't deny you ever loved them, love them still, even if loving them causes you pain.Collection: Pain
You think everything can be magically cured with vitamins?” “Everything but us.Collection: Thinking
I like one hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain and things that are pink. I hate pimples, baked potatoes, when my mother's mad, and religious holidays.Collection: Mother
It's strange, but when it comes right down to it I never do fall apart--even when I'm sure I will.Collection: Fall
some changes happen deep down inside of you. And the truth is, only you know about them. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.Collection: Way
[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.Collection: Real
With "Margaret," I remember clearly it was, you know because I did remember it clearly. I was young. I was young in terms of experience and what did I know about and I had an incredible memory from my own childhood. And so it never occurred to me to write for any other age group. And I thought I'm going to write a book and I'm going to tell the truth.Collection: Memories
In this age of censorship, I mourn the loss of books that will never be written, I mourn the voices that will be silenced-writers' voices, teachers' voices, students' voices-and all because of fear.Collection: Teacher