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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.

Kate DiCamillo

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Kate DiCamillo
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 25
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo
Work
Drink
Time
Full
Think
Lasts
Thinking
Last
Bookstore
Write
Bookstores
Used
Cups
Writing
Coffee
Thing
Computer

More quotes by Kate DiCamillo

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If there is anything that I think I might use later, I underline it.
Kate DiCamillo
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There's nothing more fabulous than an adult saying to you, I think that you might like this one [book]. So I'm grateful every time that happens. It's an amazing thing that people care that passionately.
Kate DiCamillo
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There are so many difficult things and stories can make them palatable. That's the way I have always felt.
Kate DiCamillo
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In luggage claim at the Minneapolis airport, the guy came up to me and said, Maybe you're wrong, maybe stories do matter. I wrote that on a scrap of paper and put it above my desk. That was the thing that pushed me through to the end of telling Despereaux, that comment, Maybe they do...maybe stories matter.
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There is nothing worse than war in the summetime.
Kate DiCamillo
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While we were working, we were writing about a tall girl and a short girl, which we thought was funny, because Alison's [McGhee] tall and I'm short.
Kate DiCamillo
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I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
Kate DiCamillo
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Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
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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.
Kate DiCamillo
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Rob Horton, the main character of The Tiger Rising, was a secondary character in an adult short story I wrote, and he wouldn't go away after I'd finished the short story. I couldn't figure out what he wanted, so I wrote to find out.
Kate DiCamillo
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... 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.
Kate DiCamillo
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Writing is seeing. It is paying attention.
Kate DiCamillo
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Most of my books begin with an image or a voice - one small thing - and I don't know what it is going to become.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
Kate DiCamillo
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I always go to the Agriculture Building, where they make apple cider popsicles for a dollar.
Kate DiCamillo
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How will the world change if we do not question it?
Kate DiCamillo
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Mercy Watson is obsessed with toast. What was blocking me was the challenge of trying to understand what she loves, what motivates her. That was the missing piece. Toast became the physical symbol of Mercy's hopefully endearing greed and obsession. Without that element in place, it didn't make sense.
Kate DiCamillo