Quote

The draft that finally goes to my editor doesn't get into her hands until I have read it out loud innumerable times - sometimes into a tape recorder - to make sure that it sounds right.

Kate DiCamillo

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Kate DiCamillo
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 25
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo
Sound
Editor
Read
Editors
Times
Tape
Doesn
Loud
Hands
Sounds
Recorder
Right
Finally
Recorders
Sometimes
Goes
Innumerable
Make
Sure
Draft

More quotes by Kate DiCamillo

Image
I will be brave, thought Despereaux. I will try to be brave like a knight in shining armour. I will be brave for the Princess Pea.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
When I get to a point in my book writing when I don't know what I'm going to do next, I'll come back look at underlined passages and see if the images I wrote still have a certain amount of resonance for me.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
... 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
Image
If the world held magic powerful enough to make the elephant appear, then there must exist, too, magic in equal measure, magic powerful enough to undo what had been done.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
The funny thing is, when I've gone through the relentless editing process, my editor and I are amazed the Mercy Watson books still make us laugh. The same jokes that made us laugh the first time around still make us laugh in the 16th rendition.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
Reading a story should be a fabulous, wonderful thing. The most important thing that parents can do for kids is to read with them and to let their kids see them reading books for their own pleasure.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
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.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
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
Image
It is a bad thing to have love and nowhere to put it.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
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
Image
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.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
Love is in all of the books, and that's the connective tissue between them. There's a lot of hope in me I can feel it. These stories are balls of light for me.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
Mercy Watson was a character that had been in my head for a long time.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
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
Image
I journal for about half an hour, and by the time that's done, the business day on the East Coast has begun. The phone starts to ring, and the rest of the day is spent dealing with the business of writing. My workday is done at about 3:00.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
If you have no intention of loving or being loved, the whole journey is pointless.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
There are so many difficult things and stories can make them palatable. That's the way I have always felt.
Kate DiCamillo
Image
I think, oh my god, kids are reading, and they care about a book enough to come over and talk to me about a book that they care about. If I think about it as being a celebrity, it would freak me out. But I just think, lucky me, that I get to be a part of this whole thing.
Kate DiCamillo