Blume Quotes & Sayings

There are some people who just make you want to see how far you can go. — Judy Blume

We watched as the last — Judy Blume

Librarians save lives: by handing the right book, at the right time, to a kid in need — Judy Blume

No place has delicatessen like New York. — Judy Blume

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. — Judy Blume

Berman's foot measure. Then he turned it around and I put my right foot in. That's another reason why my mother thinks Mr. Berman is good at selling — Judy Blume

A person can have a happy and fulfilling life without children. — Judy Blume

I can't think when you're in here," he said.
"What do you have to think about?"
"Making! — Judy Blume

Everyone knew Eleanor was the smartest person in their class. So when she said sabotage the rest of them went scrambling for the Merriam-Webster dictionary. — Judy Blume

Judy Blume excels at describing how it feels to be invisible. So how poetic is it that Blume herself is suddenly everywhere? — Diablo Cody

I spent an awful lot of time with Hemingway. And Hemingway had a remarkable ability to reach very noble goals through sometimes ignoble means. — Lesley M.M. Blume

Precious Child ... nothing matters but the moment. There might be no tomorrow and even if there is, nobody gives a damn. — Judy Blume

And so with Hemingway's writing, he famously wrote to one of his publishers - he said, you don't need a high school education to enjoy my writing. And it's going to titillate the masses. I mean, anybody can relate to it, but the style is so revolutionary that it will titillate highbrow critics, which it did. — Lesley M.M. Blume

I am a big defender of 'Harry Potter,' and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them. — Judy Blume

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success. — R.L. Stine

How do you stop yourself from worrying?" "I think of all the good things in my life." "What about the bad things?" "There's no room for them inside my head. Not anymore. Now I say live and let live, and I kick those other thoughts away. — Judy Blume

I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts. — Judy Blume

windup train that made a lot of noise. Every time it bumped into something it turned around and went the other way. Fudge liked it a lot. He likes anything that's noisy. — Judy Blume

But you have to be sure you can handle the situation before you jump into it. — Judy Blume

Do not let anyone discourage you. If they try: get determined, not depressed. — Judy Blume

I love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both. — Judy Blume

Some changes happen deep down inside of you. And the truth is, only you know about them. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. — Judy Blume

As soon as I had the camera in my hand for the first time, I just fell in love. — Lawrence Blume

Like my mother said, you can't go back to holding hands — Judy Blume

You've never been in love," she said. "You don't understand."
"If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities," Caitlin said, "Then I haven't missed anything. — Judy Blume

Another thing all writers have in common is we're all observers. We pay attention to detail. — Judy Blume

He's not like anything. He's a person who just happens to have been born with something he can't control. It could have happened to you. It could have happened to any of us. So the next time you see someone in a chair, someone spastic, just imagine if that were you! The same you who's standing here now, but your mind's been trapped inside a body you can't control! — Judy Blume

Love at thirteen is nothing like love at eighteen. — Judy Blume

...Incest is rape by extortion. Thus the child's very childhood becomes a weapon used to control her. — E. Sue Blume

The first thing I learned from Judy Blume was that God is the wrong one to ask for bigger breasts. (Stephanie Lessing) — Jennifer O'Connell

Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don't even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be something in it that's wrong. — Judy Blume

Judy Blume especially sort of broke the boundaries of what is appropriate and what should be written about - what teenagers are actually doing. — Sara Shepard

I never had a favourite book! I liked all kinds of things - science fiction, so I read Heinlen and Ray Bradbury, and I also liked reading about kids like myself, so I read Judy Blume and Norma Klein and Paula Danzinger and a lot of other writers. I also read James Herriot! — Rebecca Stead

I'm an e-mail junkie though I'm trying to read my in-box only twice a day and to answer all at once. — Judy Blume

The child from nine to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing. — Judy Blume

My mother named me Deenie because right before I was born she saw a movie about a beautiful girl named Wilmadeene, who everybody called Deenie for short. — Judy Blume

Something awful happens to a person who grows up as a creative kid and suddenly finds no creative outlet as an adult. — Judy Blume

Sometimes sex is the price that is exacted from her for warmth and attention. And if these sometimes wonderful moments of closeness must coexist with terrifying, confusing moments of abuse, she learns to see the two as parts of the same experience. She grows to think she wanted the incest itself. Because they've become enmeshed, she doesn't know that it was love she wanted, not sex. — E. Sue Blume

When you're without problems," Clare said, "you're dead. — Judy Blume

Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination. — Judy Blume

You have to admit it's embarrassing that she's pregnant at thirty-three. And he's eleven years older. I feel sorry for their baby. Think of it - when the baby is our age your mother will be almost fifty and my father will be sixty. They'll be more like grandparents than parents. — Judy Blume

When you ask, Did writing change my life? It totally changed my life. It gave me my life. — Judy Blume

Some characters become your friends for life. That's how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy. — Judy Blume

I want you to know it was no big deal ... those movies showing women screaming in labor are plain bullshit ... there's nothing to it ... you just push and push and finally the baby pops out ... to tell you the truth I don't even rember that much about it except there was a very nice guy standing over me and every time a strong contraction started he gave me a whiff of gas ... — Judy Blume

Moms come up to me at book signings. — Judy Blume

It's not God's job to decide what happens," she'd said. "It's his job to help you get — Judy Blume

I like one hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain and things that are pink. I hate pimples, baked potatoes, when my mother's mad, and religious holidays. — Judy Blume

Do you think just having a baby automatically makes you love it?'
'I'm not sure ... you might have to learn to love it, like any other person. — Judy Blume

Keep busy, Sandy ... when you're busy you don't have time to brood ... "
"Life should be more than keeping busy."
"Maybe it should be, but for most of us, it's not. — Judy Blume

I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose! — Judy Blume

I fell in love with books at the Elizabeth Public Library when I was four ... — Judy Blume

Trouble in our family is spelled with a capital C and has been as long as I can remember. The C stands for Charles. He's my older brother, two years and four months older to be exact. Ever since the phone call about him last night, I've felt incredibly tense. And now, at this very minute, my parents are driving up to Vermont, to Charles's boarding school, to find out if he's actually been kicked out or if he's just been suspended again. I — Judy Blume

It's all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but it's that determination. — Judy Blume

The truth will make you odd. — Judy Blume

From a May 2010 Interview, Chuck Palahniuk
Weird and creepy but true, I've been reading lots of Judy Blume. Being a 48-year-old male reading about adolescent sex in Forever gets me lots of stares in airports ... At this point I am an authority on menstruation. — Chuck Palahniuk

He even brags about his poops, — Judy Blume

My only advice is to stay aware, listen carefully, and yell for help if you need it. — Judy Blume

books: Nancy Drew, Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown, and later, anything with even a passing mention of sex in it: Judy Blume's Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, and those Clan of the Cave Bear books, the whole Flowers in the Attic series. But mostly we were obsessed with a book called The Chrysalids. We — Ivan E. Coyote

Everybody eventually discovers that they are an individual with the power to affect their own lives and make it better or not. — Lawrence Blume

Be careful,' Irene warned Miri. 'All boys want the same thing.'
So do girls, Miri thought. — Judy Blume

I don't believe in writer's block. There are good days when you're writing and less good days. I've learned that if it's not happening to walk away and return later. I doodle a lot and often get my best ideas with a pencil in my hand while I'm doodling. The problem is, sometimes I lose my doodles and that's bad! — Judy Blume

I'm a more skilled writer now, but after 23 books it's harder to be fresh and that's really important to me. I don't want to write the same thing over and over again. — Judy Blume

Why do they wait until sixth grade when you already know everything? — Judy Blume

Aunt Diana shoved the baby at the Great One. — Judy Blume

When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside. — Judy Blume

Life is a series of unlikely events, isn't it? Hers certainly is. One unlikely event after another, adding up to a rich, complicated whole. And who knows what's still to come? — Judy Blume

I can't let safety and security become the focus of my life. — Judy Blume

I think the child I was until 12 was so much more interesting than the teenager I became. As a teenager, you get wrapped up in your friends and sexual stuff, and the imaginative life you had, it just goes. And mine was so rich and fun. Fortunately, I was able to tap back into that later on [through my books] to save my life. — Judy Blume

A library is where you meet fascinating characters you never forget. — Judy Blume

I gravitated to Judy Blume early on. 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing' was my favorite, with a realistic and relatable protagonist in Peter Hatcher. When I reached the fourth grade, I made the leap to science fiction and never looked back. — Jeff Kinney

My generation was obsessed with scoliosis. Judy Blume dedicated an entire novel to it. At least once a month we would line up in the gym, lift our shirts, and bend over, while some creepy old doctor ran his finger up and down our spines. Nuclear war was a high-concept threat, two words that often rang out in political speeches or on the six o-clock news. Our spines. Lice. Nuclear war. The Big Three. — Amy Poehler

I've heard that some authors do dream their books and I would love that if it happened to me, but so far it hasn't. Sometimes I'll get a good idea during the night and if I don't write it down, I won't remember it the next morning. — Judy Blume

We must, we must, we must increase our bust. — Judy Blume

Eleanor Gordon was the most sophisticated in their crowd. She read The New Yorker. — Judy Blume

Girls Wanted to Enter Flight Stewardess Training Group
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If you are interested and feel you can meet all of the qualifications below, please write in detail and attach a full length photograph.
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Plenty of Personality and Poise
GENDER: Female
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RACE: White
AGE: 21-26 years old
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Must be a US citizen and available for training within 6 months.
If you feel you qualify
— Judy Blume

I think people who write for kids, we have that ability to go back into our own lives. — Judy Blume

Many of Judy Blume's books - which I devoured when I was growing up and where I found characters that were believable because they were a lot like me - caused considerable consternation when they were first published, but now they're widely accepted as an essential part of the children's literary canon. — Jeff Kinney

Terrible things can happen in this life but being in love changes everything. It gives you something to hold on to. — Judy Blume

Things change ... things happen ... things you can't even imagine when you're young and full of hope. — Judy Blume

The only thing that works with writing is that you care so passionately about it yourself, that you make someone else care passionately about it. — Judy Blume

Does everything in this life begin and end with Judy Blume? Perhaps. — Jami Attenberg

I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best ... once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture. — Judy Blume

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters. — Judy Blume

As a kid, during the school year, my head was often buried in a textbook or Judy Blume book; the words and pictures were the perfect, barrier-free environment for me. — Marlee Matlin

Too many people realize at the end of their lives that they've taken for granted those who really love them. — Lesley M.M. Blume

For me, it's been a treat to interact with authors who were publishing when I was a young reader. Judy Blume once gave me a pep talk at a writing conference. I had a short story featured in the same anthology as Beverly Cleary. Magic. — Cynthia Leitich Smith

You can't deny they ever happened. You can't deny you ever loved them, love them still, even if loving them causes you pain — Judy Blume

Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it. — Judy Blume

He couldn't help himself. He loved us, Francie, more than anything, — Judy Blume

The best books come from someplace deep inside ... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either. — Judy Blume

I kept a diary as a teenager but I never would have shared it with anyone. Still, I think it's very good practice to write things down. — Judy Blume

That's not a bad word ... hate and war are bad words, but fuck isn't. — Judy Blume

Suddenly question number four popped into my mind. Have you thought about how this relationship will end? — Judy Blume

Suppose there aren't any more A + days once you get to be twelve? Wouldn't that be something! To spend the rest of your life looking for an A + day and not finding it. — Judy Blume

You weren't always born to the right parents. And parents didn't necessarily get the kids they were meant to raise. — Judy Blume

How can I stop worrying when I don't know if I'm going to turn out normal?" "I promise, you'll turn out normal." Are — Judy Blume

You better get used to it. You're going to be on the ground a lot today, but cheer up ... tomorrow you'll be an expert. — Judy Blume

Even now she can't decide. She thinks about flipping a coin. Heads she goes, tails she stays. But isn't indecisiveness an early sign of mental illness? — Judy Blume

There's a brown leather section, a green leather section, a red leather section and a tan leather section. Upstairs, there are four bedrooms, all in a row. And everywhere you look there are fireplaces. There's one in every bedroom, there's one in the living room, another in the dining room and still another in the library. There aren't any in the bathrooms or the kitchen. My mother and father call the — Judy Blume

At their core, Tiger Eyes, Forever ... , and Sally J. Freeman are all books about teenage issues, but to an adult reader, the parents' story lines seem to almost overshadow their daughters. I'm bringing an entirely new set of experiences to these novels now, and my reward is a fresh set of story lines that i missed the first time around. I'm sure that in twenty or thirty years I'll read these books again and completely identify with all the grandparent characteristics. That's the wonderful thing about Judy Blume - you can revisit her stories at any stage in life and find a character who strikes a deep chord of recognition. I've been there, I'm in the middle of this, someday that'll be me. The same characters, yet somehow completely different. (Beth Kendrick) — Jennifer O'Connell