Quotes by Beverly Cleary

About Beverly Cleary:

Beverly Cleary is an American author of more than 30 books for young adults and children. One of America's most successful writers of children's literature, she has sold 91 million copies of her books worldwide. Some of her best-known characters are Henry Huggins, Ribsy, Beatrice ("Beezus") Quimby, her sister Ramona Quimby, and Ralph S. Mouse. She won the 1981 National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother and the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I had a bad time in school in the first grade. Because I had been a rather lonely child on a farm, but I was free and wild and to be shut up in a classroom - there were 40 children on those days in the classroom, and it was quite a shock.

Beverly Cleary

In my grammar school years back in the 1920s I used my ten-cents-a-week allowance for Saturday matinees of Douglas Fairbanks movies. All that swashbuckling and leaping about in the midst of the sails of ships!

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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

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

Beverly Cleary

I read my books aloud before they were published.

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

Beverly Cleary

I don't ever go on the Internet. I don't even know how it works.

Beverly Cleary

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

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

Beverly Cleary

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 inter...

Beverly Cleary

My mother always kept library books in the house, and one rainy Sunday afternoon - this was before television, and we didn't even have a radio - I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered I was reading and enjoying what I read.

Beverly Cleary

I don't think children themselves have changed that much. It's the world that has changed.

Beverly Cleary

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

Beverly Cleary

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.

Beverly Cleary

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

Beverly Cleary

Author Bio

  • NameBeverly Cleary
  • DescriptionAmerican writer of children's books
  • BornApril 12, 1916
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Children's Writer; Autobiographer
  • WorksRamona; The Mouse And The Motorcycle; Dear Mr. Henshaw
  • AwardsNational Medal Of Arts; Newbery Medal