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 CLEARYI don’t necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that’s most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.
More Beverly Cleary Quotes
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Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.
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All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.
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She means well, but she always manages to do the wrong thing. She has a real talent for it.
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Didn’t the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?
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If she can’t spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.
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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.
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I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
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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.
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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.
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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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When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.
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I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.
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I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
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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.
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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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