Beverly Cleary Quotes
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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 rarely read children's books.
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What interests me is what children go through while growing up.
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'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.
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I think adults sometimes don't think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.
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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.
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I'm just lucky. I do have very clear memories of childhood. I find that many people don't, but I'm just very fortunate that I have that kind of memory.
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People are inclined to say that I am Ramona. I'm not sure that's true, but I did share some experiences with her.
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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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I was an only child; I didn't have a sister, or sisters.
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I don't think children themselves have changed that much. It's the world that has changed.
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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!
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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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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.
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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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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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I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.
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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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Ramona was originally an accidental character I added to the Henry Huggins books because I noticed that none of the characters had siblings. I added Ramona as Beazus' pestering little sister.
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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.
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I particularly enjoy cello music because our daughter plays the cello. I have listened to her practice for so many hours that I am familiar with the music written for that instrument. I am also fond of the popular music of the 1930s because my future husband and I danced to it so many Saturday nights when we were in college.
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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.
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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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Children want to do what grownups do.