Judy Blume Quotes

Nothing teaches you as much about writing dialogue as listening to it.

I'm a people person. I never get tired of watching people, especially young people.

It's not so much that I like him as a person God, but as a boy he's very handsome.

You've got to enjoy whatever you can and forget about the rest.

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.

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.

Isn't that interesting. All the book clubs. I've never belonged to one.

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.

I love picture books. I think some of the best people in children's books are the ones who create their own picture books. I wish I could say I'm one of them, but I'm not.

You've never been in love," she said. "You don't understand." "If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities," Caitlin said, "Then I haven't missed anything.

My characters live inside my head for a long time before I actually start a book. 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.

We weren't doing blow jobs when I was growing up.

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.

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 want you to know it was no big deal...those movies showing women screaming in labor are plain bullshit....there's nothing to it...you just push and push and finally the baby pops out...to tell you the truth I don't even rember that much about it except there was a very nice guy standing over me and every time a strong contraction started he gave me a whiff of gas.

The child from 9 to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing.

Books opened up a whole new world to me. Through them I discovered new ideas, traveled to new places, and met new people. Books helped me learn to understand other people and they taught me a lot about myself. ... Some books you never forget. Some characters become your friends for life.

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.

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

My husband says I have too much imagination, but I don't think a writer can have too much imagination!

I have to go with what comes naturally to me. Fantasy isn't my thing. I did enjoy the Oz books when I was growing up and certainly my grandson and I read Harry Potter together. You write what you can as well as you can.

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.

Concentrate on how good if feels to be alive. No matter what. Just to see the color of the sky, just to smell the air, and feel the wind in your face

I love to watch movies.

Its all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but its that determination.

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.

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.

I wanted to write honest books for kids because I didn't have those when I was a kid.

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.

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.

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!

Some characters become your friends for life. That's how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy.

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.

I think about Lenaya and Hugh. Will they know how much I've changed this year? Will they have changed too? I'll wait until tomorrow to find out. And then it's possible I won't find out after all. Because 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.

I do believe that people who write for children are deeply connected to their own childhood.

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.

"Summer Sisters" was actually was a huge influence on "Girls" because it was the first thing I ever consumed that sort of looked at the way that female friendship can be glorious and can be complicated and can be so like a worse betrayal than something romantic and it just showed these archetypes of femininity than totally sort of individuated them and exploded them.

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.'

I love you, Michael Wagner.” “Forever?” he asked. “Forever,” I said.

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.

[ Adult novels] was the world of grownups. There was nothing about teenagers.

The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.

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.

If no one speaks out for [young readers], if they don’t speak out for themselves, all they’ll get for required reading will be the most bland books available. Instead of finding the information they need at the library, instead of finding novels that illuminate life, they will find only those materials to which nobody could possibly object... 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.

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.

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 don't necessarily want to talk about a book that I read. Even when I love it.

That's good when you don't know what you're doing. But you're doing it and it's spontaneous and you're not afraid.