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

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
Boys
Growing
Books
Child
Book
Children
Observant
Neighborhood
Based

More quotes by Beverly Cleary

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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.
Beverly Cleary
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I read my books aloud before they were published.
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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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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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What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
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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
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I am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
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I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
Beverly Cleary
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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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My mother would read aloud to my father and me in the evening. She read mainly travel books.
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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.
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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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 was an only child I didn't have a sister, or sisters.
Beverly Cleary
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I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
Beverly Cleary
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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
Beverly Cleary
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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.
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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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