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

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" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I don't think people change; electronics change, the things we have change, but the way we live doesn't change. "

" It embarrasses me to flaunt anything good written about me or my books. I don't know what we're supposed to do about that. "

" 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'm an optimistic person, so I like to leave my readers with a sense of hopefulness. "

" My mother's mantra was, 'How would it look to the neighbors?' And so you don't do anything because you're worried about how it would look to the neighbors. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" The women's movement was slow in coming to suburban New Jersey. "

" 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. "

" I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In sixth grade, I made up books to give book reports on. "

" I don't deal with writer's block, I don't allow myself to believe that there is such a thing. I think that there are good days and a lot more less good days. "

" 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. "

" 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 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 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. "

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

" What can happen if a young reader picks up a book he/she isn't yet ready for? Questions, maybe. Usually, that child puts down the book and says, 'Boring.' Or, 'I'm not ready for this.' Kids are really good at knowing what they can handle. "

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

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

" Here's the thing: If you don't want your kids to read a book, fine. You can tell them not to read a book, and maybe they will and maybe they won't. But you can't say what other kids can read. "

" I think the child I was until 12 was so much more interesting than the teenager I became. "