Kate DiCamillo

“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.”

“To me, this is one of the great things about writing kids' books: the illustrations.”

“Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. 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. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.”

“I have a part-time dog. I'm actually an aunt to a dog, and he's an awful dog, but I love him. He's only interested in doing what he wants to do.”

“It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.”

“Writing at home and then going out into the world to talk about why books matter to me feeds the writing. It's a good mix. It provides balance.”

“Despereaux was reading the story out loud to himself. He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end...”

“I think hope and magic are probably connected.”

“I was lucky enough to have a mother who took me to the library - the public library - twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. And also bought me books. And also read aloud to me.”

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

“I am stuck at 10 years old. I think.”

“Stories are light.”

“I decided a long time ago that I didn't have to be talented. I just had to be persistent.”

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

“She might be a natural-born cynic, but she knew the right word when she heard it.”

“It's a very powerful, emotional thing to read a book, and to reduce it to a series of questions in a test strips something away from the book.”

“Writing a novel isn't like building a brick wall. You don't figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier each time because you know what you're doing. With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time. Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope.”

“I'm not going to make judgments about what people are reading. I just want them to be reading. And I think reading one book leads to another book.”

“There's still, even now, a part of me that can't believe that I got published. That part of me has never gone away.”

“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.”