Quotes from Kate DiCamillo

I had it in my head when I was in college that I wanted to be a writer, but it took me a long time to commit to being a writer. Up until then, I had worked one dead-end job after another while writing on the side.

I think hope and magic are probably connected.

You can always trust a dog that likes peanut butter.

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.

Do you think everybody misses somebody? Like I miss my mama?" "Mmmm-hmmm," said Gloria. She closed her eyes. "I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.

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

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.

But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love?

I promise to always turn back toward you.

It is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it.

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

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

That is surely the truth, at least for now. But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.

You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.

Someone will come for you, but first you must open your heart...

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.

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

Other people's tragedies should not be the subject of idle conversation.

There, she said. She rocked him back and forth. There, you foolish, beautiful boy who wants to change the world. There, there. And who could keep from loving you? Who could keep from loving a boy so brave and true?

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.

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?

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.

Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would neverlike the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.

Thinking about her was the same as the hole you keep on feeling with your tongue after you lose a tooth. Time after time, my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where I felt like she should be.