Beverly Cleary Quotes
"Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Writers)
"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
(Related: Books, Chance, Reading, Twins)
"What interests me is what children go through while growing up."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Children, Growing up)
"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."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Mother, Father, People, Evening, Television)
"Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Books, Childhood, Will)
"People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: People, Books, Children)
"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
(Related: People)
"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
(Related: Friend, Books)
"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
(Related: Reading, Want)
"I was an only child; I didn't have a sister, or sisters."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Sister, Sisters)
"I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Writing)
"Children want to do what grownups do."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Children, Want)
"I was a librarian."
- Beverly Cleary
"Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Children, Pleasure, Reading, School, Teachers)
"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
(Related: Mother, Father, Feelings, Children, Play, Want)
"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
(Related: Books, Burden, Children, Problems, Want)
"I grew up before there were strict leash laws."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Laws)
"I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Mother, Books)
"I read my books aloud before they were published."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Books)
"I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind."
- Beverly Cleary
(Related: Mind)
"I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library."
- 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
(Related: Imagination, Work, Beginning)