Beverly Cleary Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

Today I discovered two kinds of people who go to high school: those who wear new clothes to show off on the first day, and those who wear their oldest clothes to show they think school is unimportant.

Beverly Cleary
Didn't the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?

Beverly Cleary
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
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
She means well, but she always manages to do the wrong thing. She has a real talent for it.

Beverly Cleary
That was the trouble with this house. A girl couldn't even carry on a telephone conversation with any privacy.

Beverly Cleary
All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it, not just one little squirt.... The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake.

Beverly Cleary
If she can't spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.

Beverly Cleary
I was a well-behaved girl, but I often thought like Ramona.

Beverly Cleary
Words were so puzzling. Present should mean a present just as attack should mean to stick tacks in people.

Beverly Cleary
The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else — grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

Beverly Cleary
Neither the mouse nor the boy was the least bit surprised that each could understand the other. Two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language.

Beverly Cleary
As a child, I very much objected to books that tried to teach me something. I just wanted to read for pleasure, and I did. But if a book tried to teach me, I returned it to the library.

Beverly Cleary
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
She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.

Beverly Cleary
Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.

Beverly Cleary