I was a librarian.

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

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

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

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 wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

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

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

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

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.

Children want to do what grownups do.

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

I was a librarian.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

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

I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad some of them found it.

I don't think children themselves have changed that much. It's the world that has changed.

I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.

I particularly enjoy cello music because our daughter plays the cello. I have listened to her practice for so many hours that I am familiar with the music written for that instrument. I am also fond of the popular music of the 1930s because my future husband and I danced to it so many Saturday nights when we were in college.

I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children.

I think the best teachers had a real interest in the subject they were teaching and a love for children. Some of the teachers were just doing their job, but others had that little extra. They really cared about children and they wore pretty dresses.

I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.

In 50 years, the world has changed, especially for kids, but kids' needs haven't changed. They still need to feel safe, be close to their families, like their teachers, and have friends to play with.

In my grammar school years back in the 1920s I used my ten-cents-a-week allowance for Saturday matinees of Douglas Fairbanks movies. All that swashbuckling and leaping about in the midst of the sails of ships!

My mother always kept library books in the house, and one rainy Sunday afternoon - this was before television, and we didn't even have a radio - I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered I was reading and enjoying what I read.

Ramona was originally an accidental character I added to the Henry Huggins books because I noticed that none of the characters had siblings. I added Ramona as Beazus' pestering little sister.

I dont think childrens inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house they want places to play.

My mum was a children's librarian, so I spent a lot of time in the library. My reading life, because of my mum's work, was evenly split between American, Canadian, Australian and British authors.

I was scared, because I knew that in the political arena, you have to satisfy so many different types of people at once, and I wasn't sure that I could speak for everybody and be politically correct.

I wish I had more time to visit schools.

My touring has never stopped; from the time I started doing stand-up, I've been on the road.

We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.

Maybe I'm stupid or whatever, but to me if I got a concussion, if I could see straight and I could carry a football then I'm not telling anybody.

If it was up to me, it would be nice not ever to get stopped on the street, because we just do music. I didn't do this to become a celebrity.

I've noticed that my resolutions involve me not doing stuff that I wasn't going to do anyway so here's something more positive. I'm going to retrain as a Latin teacher in a provincial public school.

I've always liked telling stories. That probably came from my dad, who definitely had the gift of gab and who wove a kind of personal folklore about his youth - stories full of adventure and ghosts and wild antics.

A lot of people assume I have a great hat collection, but kids steal my hats at every show. I've had all these hats that I've loved, but now they're in some little kids' possession. It's difficult to replenish. I don't think the kids realize this.

The last thing the Department of Homeland Security is about is infringing on anybody's constitutionally protected rights.

I didn't choose to get anorexia. I may have made some childhood-like choices to try to control something. 'I know what I'll do: I'll just not eat.' That was the initial point, but then it spiraled and became a disease - not a choice by any means.

When I'm in the city, I like to go to different events and get introduced to different people. That's what New York is all about. There is great diversity, and there are people from all over the world who have done amazing things. That's my favorite thing to do: meet new people.