Kate DiCamillo quotes:

I work full-time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think, The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.

Normally, Edward would have found intrusive, clingy behavior of this sort very annoying, but there was something about Sarah Ruth. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to do more for her. (page 135)

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.

It's hard not to immediately fall in love witha dog who has a good sense of humor.

I didn't start working on children's books until I got a job at a book warehouse on the children's floor. When I started reading some of the books, I was so impressed.

I will be brave, thought Despereaux. I will try to be brave like a knight in shining armour. I will be brave for the Princess Pea.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.

I was born in Philadelphia and currently live in Minneapolis. I write for both children and adults.

I am single and childless, but I have lots of friends and I am an aunt to three lovely children.

Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.

The words were good words, Ulysses felt, maybe even great words, but the list was very incomplete. He was just getting started. The words needed to be arranged, fussed with, put in the order of his heart.

Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful. And Despereaux's love for the Princess Pea would prove, in time, to be all of these things: powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous.

Allow me to congratulate you on your very astute powers of observation.

My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I'm always glad that I have done it. After I write, I go to work at the bookstore.

Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.

Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.

The sound of the king's music made Despereaux's soul grow large and light inside of him.

Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?

Dan selama perjalanannya itu, ia jadi tahu- bahwa hati yang paling rapuh sekalipun dapat belajar menyayangi, kehilangan, dan menyanyangi lagi"

I am busier now than I ever imagined I would be, but I feel blessed in that I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my life. It's wonderful to tell stories and have people listen to them.

Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.

But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa!" And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.

the story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannont always be sweetness and light.

I hate to cook and love to eat.

At the thought of being eaten by rats, Despereaux forgot about being brave. He forgot about not being a disappointment. He felt himself heading into another faint. But his mother, who had an excellent sense of dramatic timing, beat him to it; she executed a beautiful, flawless swoon, landing right at Despereaux's feet.

Men and boys always want to go fight. They are always looking for a reason to go to war. It is the saddest thing. They have this abiding notion that war is fun. And no history lesson will convince them differently.

There is nothing worse than war in the summetime.

Like most hearts, it was complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light.

My favorite six letter word isalwaysbecause it promisesso much.My favorite five letter word isneverbecause it insists on contradictingthe promise.My favorite four letter word isoncebecause it says ithappened then. My favorite three letter word isyesbecause I'm just now learningto say itto my heart. My favorite two letter word isifbecause it makesall things possiblelike this: If not alwaysIf not neverThen once. Yes."

I have learned how to love. And it's a terrible thing. I'm broken. My heart is broken. Help me.

You can always trust a dog that likes peanut butter.

At least Lester had the decency to weep at his act of perfidy. Reader, do you know what 'perfidy' means? I have a feeling you do, based on the scene that unfolded here. But you should look up the word in your dictionary, just to be sure.

If you have no intention of loving or being loved, the whole journey is pointless.

But, reader, there is no comfort in the word "farewell," even if you say it in French. "Farewell" is a word that,in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing.

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

Magic is always impossible. It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That's why it is magic.

This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.

It is all gone, though Peter. All of it is gone! And there is no way to get it back.'Eat,' said Leo Matienne again, very gently.Peter looked the truth of what he had lost full in the face. And then he ate.

I love your round head,the brilliant green,the watching blue,these letters,this world, you.I am very, very hungry.

Nothingwould beeasier withoutyou,because youare everything,all of it-sprinkles, quarks, giantdonuts, eggs sunny-side up-youare the ever-expandinguniverseto me.

There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.

We forget that the simple gesture of putting a book in someone's hands can change a life. I want to remind you that it can. I want to thank you because it did. - 2010 Indies Choice Award

We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us.

The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.

I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.

It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.

I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.

... every time you look at the world and the people in it closely, lovingly, imaginatively, it changes you. The world, under the microscope of your attention, opens up like a beautiful, strange flower and gives itself back to you in ways you could never imagine.

[A businessmen in plane after 9\11] asked me, "What are you working on now?" And I said I was writing a story about a mouse who tries to save a princess. I was mortified. Here the world is falling down around us, and I'm trying to tell the story about a mouse who saves a princess. I said "It doesn't matter at all now."

[He] had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers.

[our first dinner with Alison McGhee] was at Figlio's [in Minneapolis]. I know exactly what I had, because it was so good: their three-cheese ravioli. But I can't remember what I said to Alison that night that made her laugh so hard. But she got me right away and I got her right away.

A friend of mine said Winn-Dixie is the way that people want the world to be and Tiger Rising is the way that it is.

A typical day for me is I get up at 6:00, the coffeemaker goes on automatically and the computer gets turned on. I pour a cup of coffee, listen to Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, and then I write.

Alison [McGhee] and I have known each other since the summer of 2001. One evening we were sitting around talking about how we wished we had a good story to work on. Alison said: Why don't we work on a story together? I said: A story about what? And Alison said: A story about a short girl and a tall girl.

All of God's creatures have names, every last one of them. Of that I am sure: of that I have no doubt at all.

All of that loneliness and longing in my heart got transferred into the book Because of Winn-Dixie, I guess...

And hope is like love...a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing.

And so he was reading the story as if it were a spell and the words of it, spoken aloud, could make magic happen.

Anybody who puts a book into someone else's hands inspires me - teachers, librarians, booksellers, parents.

As a kid books changed how I looked at the world and helped me understand things. Books still deepen me and open my heart.

As Elmore Leonard says, I write to find out what happens.

As far as books getting turned into movies, I fared very, very well.

Besides, who ever asked you what you wanted in this world, girl? The answer to that question, reader, as you well know, was absolutely no one.

But let's not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.

Don't drop him," said Peter's mother to his father. "Don't you dare drop him." She was laughing. "I will not," said his father. "I could not." For he is Peter Augustus Duchene, and he will always return to me. Again and again, Peter's father threw him up in the air. Again and again, Peter felt himself suspended in nothingness for a moment, just a moment, and then he was pulled back, returned to the sweetness of the earth and the warmth of his father's waiting arms. "See?" said his father to his mother. "Do you see how he always comes back to me?

During the night, while Bull and Lucy slept, Edward, with ever-open eyes, stared up at the constellations. He said their names, and then he said the names of the people who loved him. He started with Abilene, and then went on to Nellie and Lawrence and from there to Bull and Lucy, and then he ended again with Abilene: Abilene, Nellie, Lawrence, Bull, Lucy, Abilene. See? Edward told Pellegrina. I am not like the princess. I know about love.

Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still. (page 103)

Every morning for, I don't know how long, I came over to Alison's [McGhee] house and we sat in her office and wrote the stories "out loud" together. We yelled at each other and made each other laugh. It was a lot of fun.

Everything when I was a kid was illustrated.

Everything, as you well know . . . cannot always be sweetness and light.

Fairy tales dont tell you that dragons are real, but that they can be defeated!

For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole. For grownups: I'm writing poems.

Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love - a powerful, wonderful thing. And a ridiculous thing, too.

Go home and read to your adult. We forget how much we love to be read to.

Have you, in truth, ever seen something so heartbreakingly lovely? What are we to make of a world where stars shine bright in the midst of so much darkness and gloom?

He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end, where the reader was assured that the knight and the fair maiden lived together happily ever after.

He was weeping. Although 'weeping' really is to small a word for the activity the kind had undertaken. Tears were cascading from his eyes. A small puddle had formed at his feet. I am not exaggerating. The king, it seemed, was intent on crying himself a river.

Her sister, Holly McGhee, is an agent, and she's my agent in New York. She's Alison's agent too. Even though Alison lives here in Minneapolis, I met Alison through Holly, when Holly came to Minneapolis to visit Alison.

Holly McGhee said I should come to dinner with them. That first dinner, I said something pretty smart-alecky, and Alison [McGhee] laughed really hard at it. It made me happy.

How will the world change if we do not question it?

I actually do like traveling.

I always go to the Agriculture Building, where they make apple cider popsicles for a dollar.

I always wanted to be a character, when I worked at Disney, but I wasn't short enough for certain characters and I wasn't tall enough for others. I wanted to be a chipmunk; I think 4'10" was the cutoff.

I always write with music. It takes me a while to figure out the right piece of music for what I'm working on. Once I figure it out, that's the only thing I'll play.

I am just always, always paying attention - waiting for the words, or image, or name that will be the beginning of a story.

I am really an introvert, and I need that time alone for a variety of reasons.

I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.

I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can see that it was a response to a terribly harsh winter here in Minnesota.

I don't know what Alison [McGhee] thinks, but I very strongly doubt that we will ever see the parents of Bink or Gollie. However, I do think it would be fun to make Tony Fucile draw portraits of the parental units and have those portraits sitting on Bink's mantel or in Gollie's kitchen. Glowering. A little.

I don't think about being a celebrity.

I feel like I've been blessed. I see the world through stories.

I grew up in Florida, and I wanted to go home and I couldn't. I didn't have the money. The book [The Tiger Rising] was a way to go home.

I have been loved said Edward to the stars

I have been loved, Edward told the stars. So? said the stars. What difference does that make when you are all alone now?

I have done quite a few signings at bookstores, libraries and conferences. I have received phone calls and letters from people who liked the book.

I have not Googled myself. I have not looked at myself on Amazon. It could drive you wild.

I journal for about half an hour, and by the time that's done, the business day on the East Coast has begun. The phone starts to ring, and the rest of the day is spent dealing with the business of writing. My workday is done at about 3:00.

I like going to schools and telling classes that when I was a child, I failed every "will this kid become a writer" test.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller,

I love adventurous travel. I also love pancakes, and making pancakes for other people. You would definitely find me in the airy treetop as opposed to below ground.

I love words; I love the way they sound. Once I've worked on everything else, the last drafts of my books come down to how they sound.

I loved school; I loved the rules, and I liked there being right answers, wrong answers, and being able to give the right answer all the time. And that goes against who many would predict is going to go out and break rules and tell stories for a living.

I need to write, and I can't write when I'm on the road.

I never want to be a role model.

I read my books out loud to myself because of the demands of the story and demands of language.

I read whatever the publisher sends me.

I remember wanting to write a book with someone, the someone being Kate [DiCamillo], and we decided to write about two friends. We had no idea how to begin this project - neither of us had ever collaborated with another writer - and I'm pretty sure that we began by giving our two friends a sock, just to see what they'd do with it. And it went from there.

I show up and try, but I may have to ask myself if I need to wait and let myself regenerate and take a break. I know that this thing that makes the stories has to be treated gently. So sometimes I'll just stop and let the well fill up. With my work, sometimes I hate doing it, but I love having done it. The key is to keep doing it.

I think for everybody reading can be a solace, illumination, education.

I think I'm succinct to the point of trying to write the two-word novel. Editing my work almost never means taking anything out but rather adding, because I'm always stripping down. I tend to under-write rather than over-write.

I think of Mercy Watson like a superball; there's a bouncy kind of optimism to her stories. She allows me to play, and she makes me laugh. Hopefully readers feel the same way.

I think that that's part of how people have responded to The Tiger Rising. It's what I call my dark child. It's gotten sandwiched in between two overachieving, tap-dance-performing kids - Winn-Dixie and Despereaux.

I think Tony Fucile, who did the illustrations [for Bink & Gollie], is an absolute genius. I've never met him.

I think we sent Tony Fucile pictures of ourselves, photos from like when we were seven years old. That's what he worked from. He captured exactly what we looked like. I'd love to do another one with Alison, not just for the joy of writing, but also for the joy of watching Tony bring it to life with his illustrations. I'm hoping at BEA, or ALA, I'll get to meet Tony and shake his hand and thank him.

I think, oh my god, kids are reading, and they care about a book enough to come over and talk to me about a book that they care about. If I think about it as being a celebrity, it would freak me out. But I just think, lucky me, that I get to be a part of this whole thing.

I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.