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In my stories for children, I sometimes show a hard, harsh, dangerous world. I'm going to show you the way it is, but I'm going to also tell you that there's every reason to hope.

Kate DiCamillo

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Kate DiCamillo
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 25
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo
Reason
Harsh
Hard
Dangerous
Sometimes
Show
Children
Hope
Going
Tell
Every
Shows
Way
Stories
World
Also

More quotes by Kate DiCamillo

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I have done quite a few signings at bookstores, libraries and conferences. I have received phone calls and letters from people who liked the book.
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
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This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.
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I like to think of myself as a storyteller.
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At the thought of being eaten by rats, Despereaux forgot about being brave. He forgot about not being a disappointment. He felt himself heading into another faint. But his mother, who had an excellent sense of dramatic timing, beat him to it she executed a beautiful, flawless swoon, landing right at Despereaux's feet.
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Alison [McGhee] and I have known each other since the summer of 2001. One evening we were sitting around talking about how we wished we had a good story to work on. Alison said: Why don't we work on a story together? I said: A story about what? And Alison said: A story about a short girl and a tall girl.
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I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.
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Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.
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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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You can always trust a dog that likes peanut butter.
Kate DiCamillo
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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.
Kate DiCamillo
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Like most hearts, it was complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light.
Kate DiCamillo
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As a kid books changed how I looked at the world and helped me understand things. Books still deepen me and open my heart.
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 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.
Kate DiCamillo
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When I was a kid I loved to read, but I didn't write and I didn't create imaginary worlds. So, if one student walks away thinking, She's obviously just an ordinary person, yet she gets to make her living doing what she wants to do. Maybe that applies to me, too, then I feel like my time has been well spent.
Kate DiCamillo
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Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.
Kate DiCamillo
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Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark.
Kate DiCamillo
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The way we started was, Alison [McGhee] said, 'Tall girl, short girl.' We had no plans beyond that.
Kate DiCamillo
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How will the world change if we do not question it?
Kate DiCamillo