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

Beverly Cleary

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Beverly Cleary
Age: 104 †
Born: 1916
Born: April 12
Died: 2021
Died: March 25
Author
Autobiographer
Librarian
Writer
McMinnville
Oregon
Beverly Atlee Cleary
Great
Tale
Fairy
Tales
Library
Entire
Tried
Reader
Section
Read
Sections

More quotes by Beverly Cleary

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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.
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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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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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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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I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
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The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
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I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
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I am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
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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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I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
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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.
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If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.
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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.
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Don't stop now. Go ahead! Be readers all of your lives. And don't forget, librarians and teachers can help you find the right books to read.
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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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I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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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.
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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.
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As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.
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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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