Top 60 Ann M. Martin Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mr. In Between.”

— Ann M. Martin

2. “Fight your battles with words, not fists.”

— Ann M. Martin

3. “I believe you are one of the people that can lift the corners of the universe.”

— Ann M. Martin

4. “I’ve discovered that in order to make big changes in the world, we have to begin at home – within ourselves.”

— Ann M. Martin

5. “I wonder how you say goodbye to someone forever?”

— Ann M. Martin

6. “I think reading is a gift. It was a gift that was given to me as a child by many people, and now as an adult and a writer, I’m trying to give a little of it back to others. It’s one of the greatest pleasures I know.”

— Ann M. Martin

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7. “After all, you can’t force a friendship.”

— Ann M. Martin

8. “I am Rose Howard and my first name has a homonym. To be accurate, it has a homophone, which is a word that’s pronounced the same as another word, but spelled differently. My homophone name is Rows.”

— Ann M. Martin

9. “For now, I just want things all safe and familiar. My life may not be perfect, but it is what I have known.”

— Ann M. Martin

10. “Love is unpredictable. It can be painful. It can be wonderful.”

— Ann M. Martin

11. “I hoped that Mary Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and I – the Baby Sitters Club – would stay together for a long time.”

— Ann M. Martin

12. “Rain and I have routines. We like routines.”

— Ann M. Martin

13. “Stacey is glamorous. She moved to Stoneybrook, Connecticut, from New York City last summer. She’s very sophisticated, and is even allowed to have her hair professionally styled, so that she has this fabulous-looking shaggy blonde mane, and she wears the neatest clothes – big, baggy shirts and tight-fitting pants – and amazing jewelry, like parrots and palm trees. She even has a pair of earrings that consist of a dog for one ear and a bone for the other ear.”

— Ann M. Martin

14. “If you’re very serious about writing it’s helpful to find an agent. It’s becoming more and more competitive to have your manuscript even looked at by an editor. Many companies don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore, so they’ll pay more attention to something that comes in through an agent.”

— Ann M. Martin

15. “I love to read, and I don’t believe that you have to finish one book before you start another. – Mallory Pike.”

— Ann M. Martin

16. “The party was a spur-of-the-moment thing for the kids Robert and I hang out with together. That’s all. Is that such a big deal? I don’t invite them to every BSC event, do I? They don’t get insulted.”

— Ann M. Martin

17. “Dawn be so rotten?”

— Ann M. Martin

18. “By the time I reached school, I was shaking. I felt as if my entire world had warped and twisted like a funhouse mirror. Nothing was the same as it had been a month ago.”

— Ann M. Martin

19. “I really loved this book. I did for a school book report last year and I really got into it I just couldnt take my eyes of! You really absolutley need to read this book!”

— Ann M. Martin

20. “There’s so many different kinds of rights to consider these days: computer, e-book, all sorts of things. Forget foreign rights and entertainment rights. There are so many things to consider and an agent is going to know how to wade through all that much better than you are.”

— Ann M. Martin

21. “Cats definitely have their own opinions.”

— Ann M. Martin

22. “Stacey?” Kristy said. “You have a Chunky wrapper on your butt.”

— Ann M. Martin

23. “I think beaches kind of get in your blood, and if you grow up near one you never feel quite right when you’re away from it.”

— Ann M. Martin

24. “It was the kind of terrified look that reminds you that no matter how rational or grown up a person might seem, some part of him is absolutely sure – knows – that an evil other-world exists just outside of our regular, everyday world. And that although we don’t expect that world to collide with our calm, predictable one... well, really, at any moment that is exactly what might happen.”

— Ann M. Martin

25. “Did you do something crazy, like cut it all off?” “Well,” I said, “not all.” “But it’s real short, right?” “Yeah, but – ” “Why did you do it?”

— Ann M. Martin

26. “I just love checking our mailbox. There is something about getting mail that is exciting. Going out to the box each afternoon is sometimes the highlight of my day.”

— Ann M. Martin

27. “Pop once said it’s a good thing we don’t know what’s around the corner. I didn’t understand what he meant then, but I do now. It’s better to wish than to know.”

— Ann M. Martin

28. “You really haven’t lived until a dog has stepped on your face. I.”

— Ann M. Martin

29. “Sorry, Mary Anne, I can’t hear you!” I shouted into the phone receiver. Mary Anne Spier cleared her throat and began, “I said, hi, I really missed you, and – ” “EEEEEEEE!” That was my two-year-old sister, Emily Michelle, racing through the kitchen. Behind.”

— Ann M. Martin

30. “Some of the things I get teased about are following the rules and always talking about homonyms.”

— Ann M. Martin

31. “Say things you’d like to hear if you were in the audience. Make the audience feel good. Flatter them.” “Flatter them.” “Just use good sense.” “Claudia?” “Yeah?” “I think maybe I was born without good sense.”

— Ann M. Martin

32. “Uncle Joe says they’re running around like thirty-year-olds.” Claudia looked confused. “Is that supposed to be young?” “To him,” I replied.”

— Ann M. Martin

33. “I guess buying food almost anywhere is more interesting than eating what comes out of your own refrigerator.”

— Ann M. Martin

34. “My mother says I am a pack rat. So what? Pack rats are probably very nice animals. And I bet they’re prepared for anything. I know I am.”

— Ann M. Martin

35. “I don’t know what to do with the space. Rain used to fill it. How do you fill empty space?”

— Ann M. Martin

36. “It’s awfully hard helping your parents grow up. But it has to be done.”

— Ann M. Martin

37. “Mom is the head librarian at the local public library. This has been a big boon to Janine, who needs books the way most people need food and water.”

— Ann M. Martin

38. “When two people are having problems, it’s hard to tell who has changed.”

— Ann M. Martin

39. “Part of me had hoped my BSC friends had planned this whole thing as a huge April Fool’s joke seven months early. We’d all have a big laugh and go back to the way we were, loyal and full of group spirit. But here’s the other side: even though my mind was a mess, my body felt the strangest sense of calmness, as if I’d just taken a swim on a Hawaiian beach. I felt free. Free and peaceful.”

— Ann M. Martin

40. “I looked at Andrew and at Nannie. I loved them and the rest of my family very much. I loved my friends too. For now that was enough love for me.”

— Ann M. Martin

41. “Mallory clapped her hand to her forehead and moaned, “Oh, no. My sisters. My baby sisters. They’ll be contaminated. They’ll be brainwashed. If I become the sister of Little Miss Stoneybrook, I will absolutely die!”

— Ann M. Martin

42. “All of a sudden it dawned on me. I knew. I just knew. I was adopted, and my adoption papers were in there. If I were adopted, that would explain why I didn’t look like anyone in my family, why I didn’t act like anyone in my family, and why there were so few pictures of me. I wasn’t Mom and Dad’s real kid. I was an unwanted baby, or an orphan like Emily Michelle.”

— Ann M. Martin

43. “Well, to make a long story short, I had this long talk with my baseball coach. And I started reading about depression. I learned that it can be serious. You shouldn’t ignore it. Talking about it can help. So can a long trip.”

— Ann M. Martin

44. “All week I kept the awful secret of my adoption to myself. I didn’t even tell Stacey what I’d discovered, and Stacey is my best friend in the world. I wanted to talk to Stacey, but I couldn’t. Not yet. There must, I thought, be some terrible reason for keeping my adoption a secret, but what could the terrible reason be?”

— Ann M. Martin

45. “Maybe being a “princess” isn’t so great. Would you always wonder whether people liked you or whether they liked the things you could do for them.”

— Ann M. Martin

46. “It was a gloomy day, gloomy outside and gloomy inside. Nobody felt like having a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. Dawn and I were depressed, Claudia was mad because she’d flunked a spelling test, Mary Anne was upset because her kitten, Tigger, had worms and Stacey was upset because she had a doctor’s appointment coming up and she hates doctor’s appointments.”

— Ann M. Martin

47. “There are going to be some things in life that you can’t change.”

— Ann M. Martin

48. “Why did Mr. Stupid tiptoe past the medicine chest?” shrieked Claire. “Because he didn’t want to wake up the sleeping pills!” she answered herself.”

— Ann M. Martin

49. “She was wearing a wonderful Claudia outfit – a purple-and-white striped bodysuit under a gray jumper-thing. The legs of the bodysuit stretched all the way to her ankles, but she was wearing purple push-down socks anyway. Around her middle was a wide purple belt with a buckle in the shape of a telephone. And on her feet were black ballet slippers.”

— Ann M. Martin

50. “My heart was acting like a prisoner in the Tower of London, banging against the walls. I had to hold my hand against it. I was afraid it would escape.”

— Ann M. Martin