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 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.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

A play is much easier to maintain your personal life with because if you're rehearsing, you're working like from 11 to 6 or 11 to 5 and you get to have your whole morning and your whole evening. When you're doing the play, you have all day.

I'm looking forward to providing the men of Seattle with an evening where they can kick back, light up a cigar and enjoy a night to themselves. Women, we can't technically keep you out, but please stay at home.

Collectively, we must do more than simply watch, with resignation and a feeling of powerlessness, reports on the evening news about the latest terrorist atrocity.

By the time this concert ends this evening, 30,000 Africans will have died because of extreme poverty. By this time tomorrow evening, another 30,000. This does not make sense.

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

South Koreans who have seen and praised the mass games should remember the hardship of tearful children. Teachers drive them hard with curses and orders to repeat and repeat. When the children return home in the evening, they can hardly walk.

Remember that God under the Law ordained a Lamb to be offered up to Him every Morning and Evening.

In the evening of the first day my father conducted us to the public baths.

The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.

Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.

In the morning we received some very thin coffee. For lunch we had potato soup with a few pieces of meat in it, in the evening we had a very thin meat soup with some potatoes in it.

The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.