Kate DiCamillo Quotes

What I hope is that the book [Bink & Gollie] delights children. What I hope is that they laugh and laugh and laugh, just as we did when we wrote them.

The Tiger Rising is, again, about a motherless child. His name is Rob Horton. He is dealing with the death of his mother, when he and his father move to a new town. And two things happen the same day that Rob gets sent home. One is he meets a girl named Sistine Bailey, who is what my mother would call "a piece of work," and he finds a real tiger in a cage in the woods behind the motel where he lives with his dad. And that's the story: what happens with the Sistine tiger, the real tiger and Rob's grief.

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

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

Each new friendship can make you a new person, because it opens up new doors inside of you.

On the return flight from my mother in Florida , I sat next to a businessman who asked me what I did for a living. I said, "I write," and it seemed totally ridiculous in the face of what had just happened. I mean, I couldn't think of anything more pointless than telling stories. He asked, "What do you write?" I said, "I write children books."

There ain't a body, be it mouse or man, that ain't made better by a little soup.

I don't think about being a celebrity.

What was it like...to have someone who knew you would always return and who welcomed you with open arms?

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.

When it is my editor telling me how to rewrite a story, I listen and do what she asks because I have learned that I get a better book in the end. I can't say I'm happy when I read that editorial letter. It is always a little painful and scary. But I have learned that - bit by bit - I can make the changes and do the work.

I was over at Alison's [McGhee], I think we were playing Scrabble. I remember we were both complaining - yeah, we sound like whiners - about how hard writing is, and how we didn't have a story to work on. Alison said, 'Why don't we work on writing something together,' and I said, 'Eh, I don't know if I could work that way.' She said, 'Well, just show up here and we'll see,' and I said, 'Well, what would it be about?' She said, 'Duh, it'd be about a tall girl and a short girl.' So I agreed to come and try it for a day.

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

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.

Reader, do you think it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) something that you might just as well do, since,in the end, it really makes no difference to anyone but you?

It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.

The words, "I have a dog named Winn-Dixie," popped into my head in the voice of a small girl with a southern accent. I'd been writing long enough at that point to know not to ignore that kind of red flag. The next day, I put aside what I'd been working on, started with that one sentence, and followed it all the way to the end.

The draft that finally goes to my editor doesn't get into her hands until I have read it out loud innumerable times - sometimes into a tape recorder - to make sure that it sounds right.

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

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

It is truly excellent to have someone believe in you and your ability to write. But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don't believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world ... write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you. Write for all those people who are not brave enough to do this grand and wondrous thing themselves. Let them motivate you.

So many miracles have not yet happened.

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.

Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly, Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth. (page 128)

I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.

When we read together, we connect. Together, we see the world. Together, we see one another.

There's a notion of art in this country that you have to be nutty or special or "called" in order to be an artist. I believe the questions everyone should ask themselves are, "Do you want to do it? Are you willing to do it poorly? Are you willing to do the work of doing it? Are you willing to persist when everybody tells you it's silly?" If you're willing to do that, then you can do it.

There ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.

Once there was a princess who was very beautiful. She shone bright as the stars on a moonless night. But what difference did it make that she was beautiful? None. No difference." Why did it make no difference?" asked Abilene. Because," said Pellegrina, "She was a princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love, even though there were many who loved her.

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 was a kid who lived to read. It was the primary pleasure of my existence. It's still one of the primary pleasures of my existence. It's where I draw my sustenance.

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

Wayne Wang, the director of Because of Winn-Dixie the movie, understood the book and transferred as much of the feeling of the book onto film as humanly possible. I think he did a fabulous job. And also I'm thrilled because the movie brings people to the book - people that wouldn't know about the book - and that's a great thing.

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

No one cared what she wanted. No one had ever cared. And perhaps, worst of all, no one ever would care.

What would make me happiest is if kids read these books [Bink & Gollie] and think: there is so much to love in the world; and words are so much fun.

There is no right or wrong way to tell a story. You have to find your own way. You can get your idea from listening, looking, or imagining. Stories are everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention.

In The Tale of Despereaux, there is a lot of darkness, a lot of despair. There's also a lot of light, redemption, hope. There's forgiveness, there's friendship, there's love. But the world in all of its potential craziness is also there.

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

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.

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.

There is a lot of love in him, a lot of love in his heart...And he is up there with no one and nothing to love. It is a bad thing to have love and no where to put it.

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.

There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.

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

I'm grateful for every teacher or librarian who reads a book and says, "This is exactly the book that so-and-so needs to read; I'll get it in his hands." I'm amazed at the network of adults who make sure that kids get books.

This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying.