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 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.

What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist.

It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer.

And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

I had plenty of pimples as a kid. One day I fell asleep in the library. When I woke up, a blind man was reading my face.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I was reading the poems of Rochester. Rochester made himself out to be bisexual, but I think that was only to shock. Most of his poetry is sexual, even pornographic.

I like the storytelling and reading the letters, the long-distance dedications. Anytime in radio that you can reach somebody on an emotional level, you're really connecting.

I was reading a book... 'the history of glue' - I couldn't put it down.

Dr. Phil was very helpful and caring. I believe he helped all of us there and watching how to better relate, understand, and communicate with our families and loved ones. Dr. Phil recommended reading my new book.

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions nor regret the loss of expensive diversions or variety of company if she can be amused with an author in her closet.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

I don't think anyone wants a reader to be completely lost - certainly not to the point of giving up - but there's something to be said for a book that isn't instantly disposable, that rewards a second reading.