Beverly Cleary quotes

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

Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.

Beverly Cleary

If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.

Beverly Cleary

People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.

Beverly Cleary

If she can't spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.

Beverly Cleary

Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.

Beverly Cleary

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

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

I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.

Beverly Cleary

Children want to do what grownups do.

Beverly Cleary

What interests me is what children go through while growing up. (Beverly Cleary)

I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.

Beverly Cleary

Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.

Beverly Cleary

I read my books aloud before they were published.

Beverly Cleary

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

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

I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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

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.

Beverly Cleary

I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad some of them found it. (Beverly Cleary)

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

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

Beverly Cleary

She means well, but she always manages to do the wrong thing. She has a real talent for it.

Beverly Cleary

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.

Beverly Cleary

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