Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.

[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.

Fear is often disguised as moral outrage.

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.

I was sick all the time, one exotic illness after another, which lasted throughout my twenties. My worst decade. But from the day the first book was accepted, I never got sick again. Writing changed my life.

[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.

My parents gave me that gift of "reading is a good thing." I mean my mother was afraid of everything. But she was never afraid that Judy is reading.