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

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
People
Surprised
Usually
Hear
Books
Read
Book
Children
Really

More quotes by Beverly Cleary

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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.
Beverly Cleary
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As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be 'better' children.
Beverly Cleary
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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
Beverly Cleary
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Children want to do what grownups do.
Beverly Cleary
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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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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
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
Beverly Cleary
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If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.
Beverly Cleary
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I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
Beverly Cleary
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I am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
Beverly Cleary
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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
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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.
Beverly Cleary