I meet people on the street or at book signings and they tend to treat me as if they know me, as if we're connected. It's great.

I love to watch movies.

I have the most loyal readers in the world.

It's good to have fantasies and creative fantasies, especially.

I discovered the National Coalition Against Censorship when I felt totally alone in my fight to protect intellectual freedom, and that group changed my life. I was no longer alone.

When I was young, my parents had a library in our living room. I was always free to browse and read.

I wish I'd gone to a small liberal-arts college where I'd have read the great books instead of a large university where I majored in early-childhood education.

I am not sure that the inner world of teenage girls has changed. What's most important to kids today is still the same stuff.

I am very sentimental, very emotional, but never in my writing; I am very tough.

After each book, I get panicky. I don't love the reviews. I don't like going through all that, and you would think that, after almost 40 years of writing, I'd have got the hang of it.

Fear is contagious, and those who wish America to become a faith-based society are doing their best to spread it.

I don't want to repeat myself.

By the time I was 12, I was reading my parents' books because there weren't teenage books then.

I'm thinking of sending out censorship packets: information to share with those who want to defend my books when they come under fire. I'll tell why I wrote them and include reviews and letters of support from children and their parents.

I think divorce is a tragedy, traumatic and horribly painful for everybody. That's why I wrote 'Smart Women.' I want kids to read that and to think what life might be like for their parents. And I want parents to think about what life is like for their kids.

A novel is about people.

I'm never doing a long novel again, truly.

My husband is a feminist!

You don't teach morals and ethics and empathy and kindness in the schools. You teach that at home, and children learn by example.

I don't have two different personalities. I am what I am.

Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Don't try to teach a pig to sing. It doesn't work, and it annoys the pig.

If you take control over those things you can, you are better able to negotiate the unexpected.

Never let anyone or anything define your value or limit your dream.

A period of detention in a chilly upstate facility can be a great attitude adjuster.

I can't stand stupid, and I can't stand slow.

I'm not sure whether it's going to be the downfall of Rome - social media. There are too many secrets.

We don't take Sweet'n Lows from restaurants anymore. I don't stuff dinner rolls into my pocketbook.

I resent it when any part of the government refers to people who have money in the pejorative.

I still think an Egg McMuffin is the best breakfast.

I don't mind getting my hands dirty, and I don't mind getting to the truth of a situation and saying, 'You're right, you're wrong, next case.'

I want first-time offenders to think of their appearance in my courtroom as the second-worst experience of their lives - circumcision being the first.

I just think I'm direct.

I go down to the gym unwashed, like something dragged in from behind a truck.

Number one - and I want you to emblaze this on your brain - you only have one chance to make a first impression.

Working parents bring a certain amount of guilt to their relationship with their children.

My viewers are smart. They know I have a contract with a TV show and that I make a lot of money.

I think the fundamentals of America are strong.

I always say that when I see that needle start to go in the other direction, when people have had enough of me, I'm going to be smart enough to say goodbye. It's such a joyous ride to be on top, and it takes away from that ride if you sort of ride it down.

I'm an entertainer, and I'm paid as an entertainer.

A combination of tenacity and luck brought me here today.

When I was a practising lawyer in the family court, there were too many judges who, when you left their courtroom, you didn't know whether you'd won or whether you'd lost.

When I go on vacation, I leave my house in total order: bills paid, garbage out, no milk in the refrigerator, mail done so that I can better negotiate what will await me.

I knew that if I worked hard, I could have both - I could have a family, because that was important to me, and I could have a career.

I left family court for the vagaries of TV and said to myself, 'Judy, what the hell are you thinking?' It seems like only yesterday.

The President of the United State is the leader of the free world, and the world has to be able to rely on his or her word, to feel that they have a good moral compass.

I'm not a good interviewer.

Not everything has to be a money-making operation. You do things sometimes because it makes you feel good.

They want to do the right thing, most people. For that little core that doesn't want to do the right thing and gets away with it routinely, most people want to see them get a good whupping. And I am your girl.

You lock your windows before you leave. You put on an alarm if you live in the country because you know that there are bad people out there. Well, in this Internet age, you know that there are bad people out there. And no matter what you do, those bad people are going to get into your house.