Quote

I've never worked with a co-author before [Alison McGhee]. Writing for me is a pretty scary thing, so it was a huge comfort to have someone in the room working with me. It became less like work and more like play.

Kate DiCamillo

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Kate DiCamillo
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 25
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo
Play
Comfort
Writing
Room
Thing
Rooms
Work
Huge
Alison
Never
Pretty
Author
Like
Working
Scary
Less
Worked
Someone
Became

More quotes by Kate DiCamillo

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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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Reading is my passion.
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 am just always, always paying attention - waiting for the words, or image, or name that will be the beginning of a story.
Kate DiCamillo
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No one cared what she wanted. No one had ever cared. And perhaps, worst of all, no one ever would care.
Kate DiCamillo
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You don't realize what you're going to get, and you can't prepare yourself for it.
Kate DiCamillo
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I read my books out loud to myself because of the demands of the story and demands of language.
Kate DiCamillo
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May God strike me down with a hammer on the head before I write a book with a teach-y goal!
Kate DiCamillo
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Love!' said the princess. She stamped her foot. 'Why must everyone always speak of love?
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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I was visiting my mother in Florida when the September 11, 2001 attacks happened. I was working on The Tale of Despereaux at that point. I had already gone into writing it with a great deal of trepidation and fear, and then this God-awful thing happens and it was really hard to even get back home to Minneapolis.
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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The Tale of Despereaux came at the request of Luke, my friend's then-eight-year-old son, who asked, Write for me the story of an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
Kate DiCamillo
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The origin of each story is unique.
Kate DiCamillo
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It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
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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Farewell” is not the word that you would like to hear from your mother as you are being led to the dungeon by 2 oversize mice in black hoods. Words that you would like to hear are “Take me instead, I will go to the dungeon in my sons place.” There is a great deal of comfort in those words.
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