Quotes from Beverly Cleary

I know this is probably sort of sudden. The boy hesitated. But I was wodnering if you would care to go to the movies with me tomorrow night.

How can there be no such word as can't? Ramona wondered. Mrs. Rudge had just said can't. If there was so such word as can't then Mrs. Rudge could not have said there was no such word as can't. Therefore, what Mrs. Rudge said could not be true.

De Sooner De Better De Later De Letter De Madder I Getter

Now we lay Picky-picky down to sleep. We pray thee, Lord, his soul to keep. Thy love stay with him through the night and wake him with the morning light.

Ramona felt sad and somehow lonely, as if she were left out of something important, because her family was in trouble and there was nothing she could do.

Ramona required accuracy from books as well as people.

No family is perfect. Get that idea out of your head. And nobody is perfect either. All we can do is work at it. And we do.

History of Drama did leave me with one valuable thought. One of the playwrights--was it Lope de Vega?--believed that ideas were somehow spewed into the atmosphere to be seized by anyone with a receptive mind, and that upon receiving an idea one should use it immediately because others were sure to pluck the same idea from the spheres. This one wisp of philosophy, no more than a sentence or two from a college course, has haunted me all my writing life.

Emily was lucky in many ways. She was lucky in the house she lived in, a house with three balconies, a cupola, banisters just right for sliding down, and the second bathtub in Yamhill County.

Willa Jean, pleased to have her grandmother on her side, set a red checker on top of a black checker. "Your turn," she said to Ramona as if she were being generous.

That's my brother Germy," said Daisy. "He thinks he's a genius because he's in high school." "Jeremy," corrected the brother to Ramona and added, "Tinsel Teeth," to his sister.

And the muscles of his scrawny arms Are strong as rubber bands.

Plainly something had to be done and it was up to Beezus to do it.

Girl Snouts." "We are not," contradicted Sarah. "We're Girl Scouts." "Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four," counted Mrs. Collins, who was the jolly type and did not understand how parents sometimes embarrass their children. Down the hill marched the class. Mitchell felt Bernadette's toe on his heel again and jumped in time.

Ellen might have known her best friend would think of something like that.

Swell, just swell," muttered Howie. "Twenty-nine kids laughing at me in girls' socks carrying a stupid little pillow.

What's the use of having a motorcycle if you can't go tearing around staying out late?" Ralph asked reasonably.

She told us we must always rotate our crops and never, never perjure ourselves.

I did not mind cleaning up my room, dusting, making the salad, but I resented her manner of asking me.

Being kissed by Gerhart was disappointing. I had expected a kiss to feel more like the time in Yamhill when I stuck my finger in the electric socket, only nice.

My reading, secluded in my room with the door shut, annoyed Mother. She constantly talked to me through the door and accused me of being snooty. I was not snooty. I was confused and unhappy, and wanted time to think without Mother telling me what to think.

But maybe when he has worked at ShopRite longer, he will like it better. New jobs take getting used to.

Nobody understood. She wanted to behave herself. Except when banging her heels on the bedroom wall, she had always wanted to behave herself. Why couldn't people understand how she felt?

and she can't wait to get rid of me and she never wants to see me again as long as she lives.