Alison Bechdel Quotes

When I was growing up, there actually wasn't a lot of YA literature as it exists today. Most of the YA that I read was from the '60s and '70s, older than me.

I was a rebellious adolescent. It was the '60s. Everyone was rebellious. I hated high school.

I didn't rebel as a child. I missed that angry teenager thing.

If I had been living through the '80s, I probably would've gotten into a lot more trouble than my parents.

I watched a lot of movies about teenagers, including 'The Last Picture Show,' 'American Graffiti,' 'Rumblefish.' It's one of my favorite genres.

I don't think you ever love anything as passionately as you do when you're a teen. You remember the books you read as a young person your whole life. I feel so lucky to write for young adults.

I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.

If it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books. And words.

People had been writing to me and saying, "Can you write something for children?" I felt I couldn't quite do it myself because I never had children.

That's the feeling [of relativity] I always had about [Judy Blume] books which I re-read and re-read and re-read.

Some of my favorite books to read are young adult books.

I had never heard of 'young adult novels,' which I guess are about teenage gangs and the new boy in town or something.

I just wanted to do the things that all normal teenagers wanted to do. So I did become quite rebellious.

A lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.

We forget that when you grow up, there are a lot of people who are in the same position as you. The reason we forget is because there's not really a true voice that talks from the perspective of youth.

We are all rebellious teenagers. Sometimes we grow out of it, and sometimes we don't.

I started writing my first book for young people when I was in college. I was only a couple of years out of my teens when I began; I felt closer to that experience than I did as an adult. But I've always been drawn to stories about young people.

To say 'A High Wind in Jamaica' is a novel about children who are abducted by pirates is to make it seem like a children's book. But that's completely wrong; its theme is actually how heartless children are.

When I was in the YA age range myself, I didn't feel like there were a lot of books for me.

Being a teenager isn't all that different from being part of someone else's story. There's always someone who thinks they know better than you do

I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.

I began attempting to write for children under the mistaken assumption that writing for children was easy.

People talk about the 1960s in a nostalgic way, but to me it was terrifying. People were getting assassinated. There was Vietnam. There were race riots. It felt like everything was going to get blown up sky-high. It didn’t feel like flower power. It felt like Armageddon.

My parents are pretty liberal. But they were just you know trying to look out for my innocence or whatever. But my babysitter had "Forever" [by Judy Blume]. And I said "Well I've read Judy Blume books, can I borrow that?" And she said no, this one's not appropriate for you. Which obviously, got me really worked up. So I took it.

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.