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

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?

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.

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.'

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.

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

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.'

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.

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.

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

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

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

I'm an Obama chick.

I'm not good at keeping secrets.

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

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.

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

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.

Anyone who thinks my life is cupcakes is all wrong.

I'm phobic about thunderstorms.

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

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

My father was the youngest of seven, and nobody lived to be 60. And so we were always sitting shiva in my house, and my father would say, 'Life goes on.'

In 1970, somebody once asked me whether I thought my books would still be around in 40 years, and I thought, 'How would I know, and why would I care?' Well, it turns out I really do care.

As a child who loved to read, I had trouble finding honest stories. I felt that adults were always keeping secrets from me, even in the books I was reading.

The protests against Harry Potter follow a tradition that has been growing since the early 1980s and often leaves school principals trembling with fear that is then passed down to teachers and librarians.

I wrote 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' right out of my own experiences and my own feelings when I was in sixth grade.

My kids both had acne, and I never saw a book dealing with the subject.

My husband and I like to reminisce about how, when we were 9, we read straight through L. Frank Baum's 'Oz' series, books filled with wizards and witches. And you know what those subversive tales taught us? That we loved to read!

I used to read about people who'd say, 'I dream my books, and then I write them down.' And I was like, 'Oh, please.'

I never thought I wanted to write about the '50s, because I thought it was the most boring and bland decade to grow up in, and I never wanted to go back there.

I'm very lucky in that my agent and my editors know better. They don't push me. Because I don't take that well.

Anybody who says, 'My childhood was completely happy,' is a person who isn't remembering the truth.

My father died when I was still in college, and it was sudden, and he was my beloved parent, and you just can't imagine what you life is going to be like.

I believe that 'The Artist' is the kind of movie you see and you don't forget. I know it's going to stay with me.

I was wildly interested in puberty as a child.

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.

The list of gifted teachers and librarians who find their jobs in jeopardy for defending their students' right to read, to imagine, to question, grows every year.

If those of us who care about making our own decisions about what to read and what to think don't take a stand, others will decide for us.

I'm very good at setting goals and deadlines for myself, so I don't really need that from outside.

I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.

In the early '70s - a very good time for children's books and their authors - editors and publishers were willing to take a chance on a new writer. They were willing and able to invest their time in nurturing writers with promise, encouraging them.

The creative process; I enjoy thinking up the stories and situations for my books.

I was a fearful kid and, for some crazy reason, a pretty fearless writer.

When I see kids standing next to their mothers at book signings, clutching a copy of 'Forever,' I know what's coming. They'll say to me, 'How old do I have to be to read this?' hoping I'll give them permission. But I can't do that.

It's all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but it's that determination.

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

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 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.