"People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books."

"I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind."

"I was an only child; I didn't have a sister, or sisters."

"People are inclined to say that I am Ramona. I'm not sure that's true, but I did share some experiences with her."

"I don't necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that's most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there."

"Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood."

"I read my books aloud before they were published."

"We didn't have television in those days, and many people didn't even have radios. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening."

"Children want to do what grownups do."

"What interests me is what children go through while growing up."

"I feel sometimes that in children's books there are more and more grim problems, but I don't know that I want to burden third- and fourth-graders with them."

"I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house."

"I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play."

"With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own."

"Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises."

"I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library."

"Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there."

"I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up."

"Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school."

"One rainy Sunday when I was in the third grade, I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered that even though I did not want to, I was reading. I have been a reader ever since."

"I grew up before there were strict leash laws."

"I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all."