Beverly Cleary

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.

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

I feel sometimes that in children's books there are more and more grim problems, but I don't know that I want to burden third- and fourth-graders with them.

My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.