Top 200 Kate DiCamillo Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 2 of 5

51. “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

52. “There’s a use for everything and everything has it’s use.”

— Kate DiCamillo

53. “This malfeasance must be stopped,” said Flora in a deep and superheroic voice.”

— Kate DiCamillo

54. “That is surely the truth, at least for now. But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.”

— Kate DiCamillo

55. “There,” she said. She rocked him back and forth. “There, you foolish, beautiful boy who wants to change the world. There, there. And who could keep from loving you? Who could keep from loving a boy so brave and true?”

— Kate DiCamillo

56. “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

57. “We shall all, in the end, be led to where we belong. We shall all, in the end, find our way home.”

— Kate DiCamillo

58. “Do not hope; instead, observe” were words that Flora, as a cynic, had found useful in the extreme. She repeated them to herself a lot.”

— Kate DiCamillo

59. “Men and boys always want to go fight. They are always looking for a reason to go to war. It is the saddest thing. They have this abiding notion that war is fun. And no history lesson will convince them differently.”

— Kate DiCamillo

60. “I have been loved, Edward told the stars. So? said the stars. What difference does that make when you are all alone now?”

— Kate DiCamillo

61. “Things are not at all what they seem to be: oh no, not at all.”

— Kate DiCamillo

62. “Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love – a powerful, wonderful thing. And a ridiculous thing, too.”

— Kate DiCamillo

63. “I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.”

— Kate DiCamillo

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

— Kate DiCamillo

65. “Look at me, he said to her. His arms and legs jerked. Look at me. You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me. The old woman turned and hobbled away. Come back, thought Edward. Fix me.”

— Kate DiCamillo

66. “I am alone in the world, Dolores, and I am homesick for my own kind.”

— Kate DiCamillo

67. “You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.”

— Kate DiCamillo

68. “Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.”

— Kate DiCamillo

69. “Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would neverlike the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.”

— Kate DiCamillo

70. “I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.”

— Kate DiCamillo

71. “Have you, in truth, ever seen something so heartbreakingly lovely? What are we to make of a world where stars shine bright in the midst of so much darkness and gloom?”

— Kate DiCamillo

72. “The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.”

— Kate DiCamillo

73. “I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me.”

— Kate DiCamillo

74. “Sometimes he reminded me of a turtle hiding inside its shell, in there thinking about things and not ever sticking his head out into the world.”

— Kate DiCamillo

75. “It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.”

— Kate DiCamillo

76. “But let’s not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.”

— Kate DiCamillo

77. “There are hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman.”

— Kate DiCamillo

78. “There ain’t a body, be it mouse or man, that ain’t made better by a little soup.”

— Kate DiCamillo

79. “Allow me to congratulate you on your very astute powers of observation.”

— Kate DiCamillo

80. “And so he was reading the story as if it were a spell and the words of it, spoken aloud, could make magic happen.”

— Kate DiCamillo

81. “It was the strangest things, how happiness came out of nowhere and inflated your soul.”

— Kate DiCamillo

82. “It is a bad thing to have love and nowhere to put it.”

— Kate DiCamillo

83. “The rat called Chiaroscuro did not look away. He let the light from the upstairs world enter him and fill him. He gasped aloud with the wonder of it.”

— Kate DiCamillo

84. “I have already been loved,” said Edward. “I have been loved by a girl named Abilene. I have been loved by a fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog. I have been loved by a boy who played the harmonica and by a girl who died. Don’t talk to me about love,” he said. “I have known love.”

— Kate DiCamillo

85. “Never use anybody else’s power, but always use yours.”

— Kate DiCamillo

86. “Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.”

— Kate DiCamillo

87. “Take this squirrel, for instance. Ulysses. Do I believe he can type poetry? Sure, I do believe it. There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible.”

— Kate DiCamillo

88. “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.”

— Kate DiCamillo

89. “You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.”

— Kate DiCamillo

90. “Rats have a sense of humor. Rats, in fact think the world is very funny. And they are right, dear reader. They are right.”

— Kate DiCamillo

91. “There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.”

— Kate DiCamillo

92. “Bah, cynics,” said Dr. Meescham. “Cynics are people who are afraid to believe.”

— Kate DiCamillo

93. “I love adventurous travel. I also love pancakes, and making pancakes for other people. You would definitely find me in the airy treetop as opposed to below ground.”

— Kate DiCamillo

94. “And when times are terrible, soup is the answer.”

— Kate DiCamillo

95. “How many times, Edward wondered, would he have to leave without getting the chance to say goodbye?”

— Kate DiCamillo

96. “There is nothing worse than war in the summetime.”

— Kate DiCamillo

97. “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

98. “I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.”

— Kate DiCamillo

99. “Sometimes, it seemed like everybody in the world was lonely. I thought about my mama. Thinking about her was the same as the hole you keep on feeling with your tongue after you lose a tooth. Time after time, my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where i felt like she should be.”

— Kate DiCamillo

100. “I am busier now than I ever imagined I would be, but I feel blessed in that I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my life. It’s wonderful to tell stories and have people listen to them.”

— Kate DiCamillo