Top 93 Beverly Cleary Quotes

#1. I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #4683
#2. Words were so puzzling. Present should mean a present just as attack should mean to stick tacks in people.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #6359
#3. I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #22272
#4. If we finished our work, the teacher would say, 'Now don't read ahead.' But sometimes I hid the book I was reading behind my geography book and did read ahead. You can hide a lot behind a geography book.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #50955
#5. People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #127467
#6. I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #140753
#7. The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #153183
#8. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #175543
#9. Today I discovered two kinds of people who go to high school: those who wear new clothes to show off on the first day, and those who wear their oldest clothes to show they think school is unimportant.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #198987
#10. Novels by British writers are among my favorites because our family has enjoyed travel in England and because they are written with an economy of words as if they were written with a pen instead of a computer. Penelope Fitzgerald is a favorite.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #232158
#11. Ramona grabbed the book. "It's mine. I told you it was mine!" Then she turned to Beezus and said triumphantly, "You said people didn't buy books at the library and now you just bought one!

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #270600
#12. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #275511
#13. All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it,not just one little squirt ... The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #287128
#14. Over the years, I have been approached about making Ramona into a cartoon or movie, but I was afraid that no one could really capture the spunky character of Ramona.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #309132
#15. She would not have hurt the old man's feelings for anything in the world.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #311479
#16. He would be atleast sixteen-old enough to have a driver's licence- and he would have crinkles around his eyes that showed he had a sense of humor and he would be tall, the kind of boy all the other girls would like to date

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #341218
#17. I like to read, walk, cook, and travel to cities. We live in the country, so we miss museums and the bustle of city life.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #364150
#18. I don't think children themselves have changed that much. It's the world that has changed.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #381019
#19. Say, who is this Mr. King?" "What Mr. King?" asked Ramona, walking into his trap. "Nosmo King,

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #384166
#20. I know this is probably sort of sudden." The boy hesitated. "But I was wodnering if you would care to go to the movies with me tomorrow night.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #384897
#21. All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #396933
#22. They wiped his paws on a good bath towel whenever he came in with wet feet, because they had not been married long enough to have an old bath towel,

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #397119
#23. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #399802
#24. She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #407074
#25. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #411759
#26. I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #419826
#27. That was the trouble with this house. A girl couldn't even carry on a telephone conversation with any privacy

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #423303
#28. And the muscles of his scrawny arms Are strong as rubber bands.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #429544
#29. I'm just lucky. I do have very clear memories of childhood. I find that many people don't, but I'm just very fortunate that I have that kind of memory.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #435226
#30. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #442177
#31. Uncle Avery, who was not only postmaster but mayor of Pitchfork as well.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #513781
#32. Neither the mouse nor the boy was the least bit surprised that each could understand the other. Two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #574660
#33. Amy thought a moment. How could they get rid of their mother? We could have her away taking care of a sick neighbor, and we are all alone in the house

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #611009
#34. I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #613396
#35. When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #654083
#36. If she can't spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #655243
#37. If she can't spell, she shouldn't be a librarian.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #758742
#38. The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else
grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #760947
#39. I wrote books to entertain. I'm not trying to teach anything! If I suspected the author was trying to show me how to be a better behaved girl, I shut the book.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #787657
#40. I guess that's what growing up is. Saying good-by to a lot of things. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it isn't. But it is all right.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #788838
#41. I am sort of medium ... I guess you could call me the mediumest boy in the class. -Leigh Botts

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #818418
#42. Tiddlywinks, tiddlywinks, I want to play tiddlywinks, chanted Ramona, shaking her head back and forth.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #841504
#43. Ralph really felt sorry for the boy, hampered as he was by his youth and his mother.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #849311
#44. I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad some of them found it.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #849634
#45. If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #860235
#46. Children want to do what grownups do.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #863923
#47. Poor Miss Binney, dressed like Mother Goose, now had the responsibility of sixty-eight boys and girls.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #893402
#48. I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #931785
#49. And now I'm going to find out how to get a library started.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #934791
#50. I was a librarian.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #948788
#51. Ellen might have known her best friend would think of something like that.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #956708
#52. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1038152
#53. I am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1058722
#54. People are inclined to say that I am Ramona. I'm not sure that's true, but I did share some experiences with her.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1061993
#55. Dear Emily, This week I went to the library. I got Black Beauty. It is about a horse. It is the best book I ever read. I read it three times. I have to go now. Write soon. Yours truly, Muriel. P.S. Mama sends her love.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1094522
#56. Oh well, thought Jane, that's how men are. He's probably taking it for granted. She found it very pleasant to be taken for granted by Stan

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1121337
#57. Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1123921
#58. My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1162282
#59. I had a bad time in school in the first grade. Because I had been a rather lonely child on a farm, but I was free and wild and to be shut up in a classroom - there were 40 children on those days in the classroom, and it was quite a shock.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1168011
#60. What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1177559
#61. As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1188607
#62. I longed for funny stories about the sort of children who lived in my neighborhood.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1206361
#63. Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1237316
#64. My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1255076
#65. Willa Jean, pleased to have her grandmother on her side, set a red checker on top of a black checker. "Your turn," she said to Ramona as if she were being generous.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1263373
#66. I haven't been very enthusiastic about the commercialization of children's literature. Kids should borrow books from the library and not necessarily be buying them.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1265529
#67. most beautiful, magic time of the whole year. Her parents loved her, and she loved them,

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1328096
#68. I think adults sometimes don't think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1331308
#69. In seventh grade ... I found a place on the [library]shelf where my book would be if I ever wrote a book, which I doubted.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1347161
#70. He was dressed as if everything he wore had come from different stores or from a rummage sale, except that the crease in his trousers was sharp and his shoes were shined.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1411426
#71. I was an only child; I didn't have a sister, or sisters.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1437169
#72. I read my books aloud before they were published.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1443441
#73. 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!

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1493799
#74. 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.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1513047
#75. She means well, but she always manages to do the wrong thing. She has a real talent for it.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1535496
#76. 'Dear Mr. Henshaw' came about because two different boys from different parts of the country asked me to write a book about a boy whose parents were divorced, and so I wrote 'Dear Mr. Henshaw,' and it won the Newbery, and I was - it's been very popular.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1570828
#77. Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1586450
#78. Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1588639
#79. I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1617504
#80. Ramona stepped back into her closet, slid the door shut, pressed an imaginary button, and when her imaginary elevator had made its imaginary descent, stepped out onto the real first floor and raced a real problem. Her mother and father were leaving for Parents' Night.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1634973
#81. Quite often somebody will say, 'What year do your books take place?' and the only answer I can give is, in childhood.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1648960
#82. 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.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1664693
#83. I don't ever go on the Internet. I don't even know how it works.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1693558
#84. I know that when I was a children's librarian, that was about 1940, boys particularly asked where were the books about kids like us, and there weren't any at that time.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1714118
#85. I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1732492
#86. I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1752036
#87. Well, she thought, I'm certainly bright. She had wanted to meet a new boy and when she finally did meet one she didn't even find out his name

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1754878
#88. If they had been riding in a car, she would have waited for him to go around and open the door for her, but riding in a truck is different

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1791417
#89. 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.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1808997
#90. Didn't the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1809016
#91. Emily was lucky in many ways. She was lucky in the house she lived in, a house with three balconies, a cupola, banisters just right for sliding down, and the second bathtub in Yamhill County.

Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary Quotes #1820134
#92. 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.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1830900
#93. 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.

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Beverly Cleary Quotes #1856237

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