Top 35 Beverly Cleary Quotes

Words matter. These are the best Beverly Cleary Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

I think adults sometimes don't think about how children

I think adults sometimes don’t think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.
Beverly Cleary
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
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 didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it.
Beverly Cleary
I rarely read children’s books.
Beverly Cleary
I grew up before there were strict leash laws.
Beverly Cleary
‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ came about because two different boys from different parts of the country asked me to write a book about a boy whose parents were divorced, and so I wrote ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw,’ and it won the Newbery, and I was – it’s been very popular.
Beverly Cleary
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
I hope children will be happy with the books I’ve written, and go on to be readers all of their lives.
Beverly Cleary
I was a librarian.
Beverly Cleary
In 50 years, the world has changed, especially for kids, but kids’ needs haven’t changed. They still need to feel safe, be close to their families, like their teachers, and have friends to play with.
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
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
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
Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.
Beverly Cleary
I don’t think children themselves have changed that much. It’s the world that has changed.
Beverly Cleary
I like to read, walk, cook, and travel to cities. We live in the country, so we miss museums and the bustle of city life.
Beverly Cleary
I read my books aloud before they were published.
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
Novels by British writers are among my favorites because our family has enjoyed travel in England and because they are written with an economy of words as if they were written with a pen instead of a computer. Penelope Fitzgerald is a favorite.
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 interesting reading that I am distracted.
Beverly Cleary
What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
Beverly Cleary
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
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
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.
Beverly Cleary
I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
Beverly Cleary
I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
Beverly Cleary
I longed for funny stories about the sort of children who lived in my neighborhood.
Beverly Cleary
Over the years, I have been approached about making Ramona into a cartoon or movie, but I was afraid that no one could really capture the spunky character of Ramona.
Beverly Cleary
I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
Beverly Cleary
Children want to do what grownups do.

Children want to do what grownups do.
Beverly Cleary
I know that when I was a children’s librarian, that was about 1940, boys particularly asked where were the books about kids like us, and there weren’t any at that time.
Beverly Cleary
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
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