The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

You're supposed to be challenged in college.

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.

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

I can't see an autobiography in my future. But who knows what might happen.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.