Quotes from Kate DiCamillo

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

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.

Going out and not only meeting the kids, but meeting the teachers and the librarians and seeing the world, fills me up.

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

Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.

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.

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

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.

I'm just doing what I've done my whole life, which is talking to people about books and making them read. It's what I do in my friendships. "Here, you have to read this, you have to read this."

I always have a notebook with me, I eavesdrop; I write down what people say. It's very rare that one of those things will provoke a story, but I think that that kind of paying attention all the time, and keeping everything open, lets the stories come in. But where they come from is still a mystery to me.

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

There's this amplification that happens anytime you tell a story. You let it go out into the world. It's the most beautiful thing. All I can do is look at it in wonder and amazement.

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

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

The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.

I think that sometimes we open our hearts a little more easily to animals than we do to each other.

Happily, I had lots of childhood heroes.

I was a kid who loved to read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I didn't have one favorite book. I had lots of favorite books: 'The Borrowers' by Mary Norton, 'Paddington' by Michael Bond, 'A Little Princess' by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 'Stuart Little' by EB White, 'A Cricket in Times Square,' all the Beverly Cleary books.

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.

We all live in fear of getting blocked no matter what kind of art we're trying to do. It happens all the time, but I prefer to think of it as a bad day.

Mercy Watson was a character that had been in my head for a long time.

In a dark time, doors will sometimes magically open and let us step inside to the warmth and light of a community.

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