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I am not a pest,” Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

Beverly Cleary

I 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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Imagination Stories
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.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Patience Reading Teacher
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

Father Mother People
The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Keys Successful Writing
I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Childhood Known
I hope children will be happy with the books I’ve written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Children Happy Hope Readers
Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Able Ideas World
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

Cousin Memories Mother
Problem solving, and I don’t mean algebra, seems to be my life’s work. Maybe it’s everyone’s life’s work.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Algebra Mean Problem
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

Book Children Want
I don’t ever go on the Internet. I don’t even know how it works.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Goes Internet Know Works
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

Different Rummage Sales Shoes
All knowledge is valuable to a librarian.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Knowledge Librarian Valuable
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Book Children Grow Up
I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
BEVERLY CLEARY

Before Grew Law Strict
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

Burton Father Imagination Mother Real Step

I am not a pest,” Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

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I am not a pest,” Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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