Beverly Cleary Quotes

“Pb-pb-b-b-b went the boy. To the mouse the sound spoke of highways and speed, of distance and danger, and whiskers blown back by the wind.”

“Feeling that this was an important moment in his life, he took hold of the handgrips. They felt good and solid beneath his paws. Yes, this motorcycle was a good machine alright.”

“Never mind the danger, never mind what his mother thought. This was living. This was what he wanted to do. On and on and on.”

“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.”

“Ralph was eager, excited, curious, and impatient all at once. The emotion was so strong it made him forget his empty stomach. It was caused by those little cars, especially that motorcycle and the pb-pb-b-b-b sound the boy made.”

“Ralph really felt sorry for the boy, hampered as he was by his youth and his mother.”

“Ralph started the motorcycle again and rode around in the moonlight once more, faster and faster, until he was dizzy from circling, dizzy with excitement, dizzy with the joy of speed.”

“Ramona stood with both heels on the curb, but her toes out over the gutter. Henry could not say she was not standing on the curb, so he merely glared. ”

“The noise was glorious. Ramona yelled and screamed and shrieked and chased anyone who would run. She chased tramps and ghosts and ballerinas. Sometimes other witches in masks exactly like hers chased her, and then she would turn around and chase the witches right back.”

“There were two kinds of children who went to kindergarten - those who lined up beside the door before school, as they were supposed to, and those who ran around the playground and scrambled to get in line when they saw Miss Brinney approaching. Ramona ran around the playground.”

“It was a perfect morning for anyone with new boots. Enough rain had fallen in the night to fill the gutters with muddy streams and to bring worms squirming out of the lawns onto the sidewalks.”

“Ramona thought of kindergarten as being divided into two parts. The first was the running part, which included games, dancing, finger painting, and playing. The second part was called seat work. Seat work was serious. Everyone was expected to work quietly in his own seat without disturbing anyone else.”

“Ramona considered. Kindergarten had not turned out as she had expected. Still, even though she had not been given a present and Miss Binney did not love her, she had liked being with other boys and girls her own age. She liked singing the song about the dawnzer and having her own little cupboard. ”

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

“When Ramona left the shoe store with her beautiful red boots, girls’ boots, in a box, which she carried herself, she was so filled with joy she set her balloon free just to watch it sail over the parking lot and up, up into the sky until it was a tiny red dot against the gray clouds.”

“Beatrice “Beezus” Quimby, a close friend of Henry Huggins, is perpetually infuriated by the imaginative antics of her younger sister Ramona, who frequently insists upon exhibiting imaginative habits.”

“Except for holding Ramona’s hand crossing streets, Beezus lingered behind her the rest of the way to the library. She hoped that all the people sho stopped and smiled at Ramona would not think they were together.”

“While Beezus was sewing, Ramona, holding a mouth organ in her teeth, was riding around the living room on her tricycle. Since she needed both hands to steer the tricycle, she could blow in and out on only one note. This made the harmonica sound as if it were groaning oh dear, oh dear over and over again.”

“She is finally prompted to reveal her animosity during her tenth birthday celebration after Ramona has ruined a pair of birthday cakes intended for the party.”

“Beezus read on through Scoopy’s failure to be a bulldozer. She read about Scoopy’s wanting to be a trolley bus (‘Beed-beep,” honked Ramona) a locomotive (‘A-hooey, a-hooey,’ wailed Ramona}, and a pile driver (‘Chunk! Chunk!’ shouted Ramona).

“Her younger sister Ramona, who frequently insists upon exhibiting imaginative habits and eccentricities such as wearing her beloved homemade paper rabbit ears while pretending to be the Easter Bunny.”

“Beezus is also commonly exasperated by actions on her disrespectful sister’s part such as writing in a library book, inviting her classmates to a house party without the permission of her parents, and wreaking havoc during Beezus’s painting class”

“On her head Ramona wore a circle of cardboard with two long paper ears attached. The inside of the ears were colored with pink crayon, Ramona’s work at nursery school. ‘I’m the Easter bunny,’ announced Ramona.”

“Beatrice, or Beezus (as everyone called her, because that was what Ramona had called her when she first learned to talk), knew other nine-year-old girls who had little sisters who went to nursery school, but she did not know anyone with a little sister like Ramona.”

“Beezus, however, is haunted frequently by the guilt of her animosity towards Ramona and the uneasy sisterhood that they share as opposed to that displayed by her mother and Aunt Beatrice.”

“But what? Arguing with Ramona was a waste of time. So was appealing to her better nature. The best thing to do with Ramona, Beezus had learned, was to think up something to take the place of whatever her mind was fixed upon.”