We can have our beliefs and still read and discuss things.

I've never been one to let others decide what's right for me or my children.

When a parent comes into school waving a book and saying, 'Take this book away. I don't like this book.' I won't say in all cases, but in many cases, that will not happen anymore. It has to go through a proper review board. The complaining parent will have to fill out a complaint, you know, put it in writing.

I'm phobic about thunderstorms.

Anyone who thinks my life is cupcakes is all wrong.

I was twenty-seven when I began to write seriously, and after two years of rejections, my first book, 'The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo,' was accepted for publication.

You know what I worry about? I worry that kids today don't have enough time to just sit and daydream.

I wasn't that good at science, and I gave up on math long before I should have. I like to think if I were in school today that would be different.

I dread first drafts! I worry each day that it won't come, that nothing will happen.

I'm not good at keeping secrets.

I'm an Obama chick.

I don't have anything new to say about teenagers.

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

I wish I could prevent my kids from making all the mistakes I've made. But I can't do that. No parent can.

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.

Parents still have a big influence on their kids - just ask any therapist. No, really, I think the parent is the most important influence on children: It's how they learn to love and treat other people.

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.'

If only there was a vaccine to protect against breast cancer, we'd be lining up - wouldn't we?

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.

Many of my books are set in New Jersey because that's where I was born and raised. I lived there until my kids finished elementary school. Then we moved to New Mexico, the setting for 'Tiger Eyes.'

I have a great T-shirt that I received at the New Jersey Hall of Fame when I was inducted. It says - it makes me choke up - it says, 'I'm a Jersey tomato'... I am. I am a Jersey girl and proud of it.

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?

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

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