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

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.

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

Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.

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!

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.

When I was young, I loved a series of books by an author called Maud Hart Lovelace and the series, which is still around, I'm happy to say, is - they're the 'Betsy-Tacy' books.

A good writer is always a people watcher.

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.

I don't deal with writer's block, I don't allow myself to believe that there is such a thing. I think that there are good days and a lot more less good days.

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.

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

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.

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

Nobody talks about housewives anymore! This is what we were supposed to do in the '50s. Not everybody, but in my milieu. My crowd. You went to college, and you got a degree in case, God forbid, you ever had to work. And you better find somebody to marry while you're there, because otherwise, what's going to become of you?

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!

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

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.'

I'm an e-mail junkie though I'm trying to read my in-box only twice a day and to answer all at once.

The women's movement was slow in coming to suburban New Jersey.

I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.

I can't relate to people who treat me as a 'famous person.' I only like to hang around with people who treat me as a regular person because that's what I am. All people are really just regular.

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