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" All along, I've been writing about our fears, our longings, our fantasies, our ambivalences. When I decided to study psychoanalysis, I did it because I wanted to understand the psychodynamics of it all. Though far from perfect, psychoanalysis offered me a huge, wonderful window on all that. "

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" Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia. "

Judith Viorst

Tax

Over

Love Is

" Starting after 60, I thought, 'I'm not going to be able to write a book of poems on the 70s. It's going to be all moans and groans and complaints, and what is there to laugh about?' But I found plenty to laugh about. "

" Lust is what keeps you wanting to do it even when you have no desire to be with each other. Love is what makes you want to be with each other even when you have no desire to do it. "

" Kids are always writing me: 'I had a bad day too.' 'I got gum in my hair.' And the kids also write to me to pass on advice to Alexander. My favorite one of those being, 'The next time you have a bad day, blame your brothers.' I didn't expect this. It's certainly the most successful of my books. "

" When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead. "

" We will have to give up the hope that, if we try hard, we somehow will always do right by our children. The connection is imperfect. We will sometimes do wrong. "

" Kids need to encounter kids like themselves - kids who can sometimes be crabby and fresh and rebellious, kids who talk back and disobey, tell fibs and get into trouble, and are nonetheless still likable and redeemable. "

" Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there. "

" The years that remain are clearly limited. When you're 80, you attend a lot more funerals. A lot more people are having a hard time and are ill. "

" Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational - but how much does it cost you to knock on wood? "

" Everything I have ever written about has been about what's going on inside of us. "

Judith Viorst

Been

Inside

" Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces. "

" I thought that the 40s was a tough decade, because it's when you finally figure out that you're not immortal, when you really start seeing that certain options are closed to you forever: You're not going to be a brain surgeon; you're not going to be a ballerina. "

" 'Alexander, Who's Trying His Best to Be the Best Boy Ever' was inspired by a combination of my grandson, my son, and myself - all those times when each of us has decided that we're just not going to get into trouble anymore. But it's so hard to be good all of the time! "

" I wrote 'And Two Boys Booed' several years ago, but we really chased around looking for the perfect illustrator, so it took a while. "

" If I could pick one reason why I want to be a writer, it would be connection. In all kinds of ways, I like to be individual and distinct; but when I write, I want to be writing about things that connect me to the people for whom I write. "

Judith Viorst

Writing

Connection

" Probably above all other things, I am interested as a writer in making a connection, interested in the parts of all of us that connect. "

" I didn't get one word published until I was well into my 30s. But I always tried. "

" Don't let anything sneak past you. Don't say, 'Well, oh, I'll take a picture and put it in my photograph album.' I notice it now. I love it now. And I am grateful for it now. "

" The best I can do is, it's like a 'ding!' You're writing, and then something starts falling into place, and you hear or feel a ding. And it just feels - it's going to be okay. "

" My mother would have been so crazy about my grandchildren. She was a fabulous grandmother, and she would have been absolutely crazed as a great-grandmother. I miss that part of her. "

" I had lived with my mother in anger and love - I suppose most daughters do - but my children only knew her in one way: As the lady who thought they were smarter than Albert Einstein. As the lady who thought they wrote better than William Shakespeare. As the lady who thought every picture they drew was a Rembrandt. "

" Love is the same as like except you feel sexier. "

" In history class, I wrote a poem, 'The Royalists and the Roundheads.' I would write poems about driftwood in art class and little stories about the sun, moon, and stars in science class. Since not many kids were writing in class, I got away with it. "

" My Girl Scout leader. She told me if I listened more and talked less, I could grow up to be a good writer. I thought that was interesting advice at age 12. "

Judith Viorst

Age

Thought

" I always credited my mother with inspiring me to be a writer because she was such a passionate reader. She read poetry to me as a child. But rather late in life, I've come to appreciate my father, the accountant. He was a solid, organized, get-the-job-done kind of person-and you need that piece of it to be a writer, too. "

" Because we believe ourselves to be better parents than our parents, we expect to produce better children than they produced. "

" I could be such a wonderful wife to another wife's husband. "

" Nobody who knows me and loves me dearly would ever call me adaptable or flexible. I'm not. "

" Most of the characters I have in my children's books are grouchy or annoyed about something or are calling each other unfriendly names. Like my own kids, they're not honeys and sweetie pies and little angels. They're kids. Sloppy, dirty, stinky. "