Beverly Cleary Quotes

“I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.”

“If you're a good Amish girl, you're courting, you have three or four different beaus, and you go out and stay out all night. That's just their tradition. They date under the covering of night. No one knows who they're dating or seeing until two weeks before they're going to be married. It's how they've done it for 300 years.”

“I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.”

“Art is the signature of civilizations.”

“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.”

“Growing up around Amish farmland, I enjoyed the opportunity to witness firsthand their love of family, of the domestic arts - sewing, quilting, cooking, baking - as well as seeing them live out their tradition of faith in such a unique way.”

“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.”

“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. ”

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

“Art is the signature of civilizations.”