Beverly Cleary Quotes (27 Quotes)

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I was an only child; I didn't have a sister, or sisters.

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

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

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

I'm very surprised at the high number of boys who have written to say that reading my books was hard work but worth it. I have many loyal boy readers.

My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.

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.

I was a librarian.

I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.

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

My books take place in a very specific neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. It must be the most stable neighborhood in the United States.

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.

I read my books aloud before they were published.

Children want to do what grownups do.

The exterior circumstances have certainly changed for many children. The world is not the safe place it was when I was growing up.

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.

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

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

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

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.

Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.