Quote

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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Beverly Cleary
Age: 104 †
Born: 1916
Born: April 12
Died: 2021
Died: March 25
Author
Autobiographer
Librarian
Writer
McMinnville
Oregon
Beverly Atlee Cleary
Word
List
Reading
Lists
Interesting
Favorite
Slows
Use
Changing
Spelled
Also
Constantly
Practise
Book
Constant
Remained
Writing
Books
Dictionary
Practice
Distracted

More quotes by Beverly Cleary

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Children want to do what grownups do.
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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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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.
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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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People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don't really read children's books.
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Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
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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.
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I read my books aloud before they were published.
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I was an only child I didn't have a sister, or sisters.
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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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I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
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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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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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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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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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I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.
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Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.
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What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
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I am not a pest, Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.
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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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