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Writing Quotes by Kate DiCamillo

62 Writing quotes by Kate DiCamillo

All Writing quotes Kate DiCamillo’s page

Kate DiCamillo says that ideas often arrive as names that pop into her head, so she always carries a notebook. She enjoys the bright illustrations that accompany children’s stories and even decorates her desk with Christmas lights to make writing feel fun. She also notes that she didn’t start writing full‑time until her late twenties while working in a book warehouse.

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“A great reader makes a great writer”

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As Elmore Leonard says, I write to find out what happens.

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You have to learn how to write each book.

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I need to write, and I can't write when I'm on the road.

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If I am just home and writing, I become very strange.

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Writing is seeing. It is paying attention.

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I like to think of myself as a storyteller,

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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…

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I didn't really start to write until I was almost 30, and I started with the short stories.

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For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole.…

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So much of writing is like walking down a dark hallway with your arms out in front of you. You bump into…

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Writing at home and then going out into the world to talk about why books matter to me feeds the writing. It's…

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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!

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To me, this is one of the great things about writing kids' books: the illustrations.

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Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.

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One, we [with Alison McGhee] laugh a lot - that was great. Two, I enjoy writing, but it's a lonely undertaking. To…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Everything about writing is hard for me except for that - the names pop into my head. That's one of the reasons…

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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…

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I journal for about half an hour, and by the time that's done, the business day on the East Coast has begun.…

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I was someone who wanted to be a writer but who wasn't writing. I was someone buying books on writing. I was…

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It is truly excellent to have someone believe in you and your ability to write. But I think it is just as…

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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…

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“Well, you know, I've been in so many writing workshops, writing classes, and to the right of me and to the left…

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On the return flight from my mother in Florida , I sat next to a businessman who asked me what I did…

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So here I am, sending a two-ounce mouse down into a dungeon with a sewing needle to save a human princess, and…

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I always have a notebook with me, I eavesdrop; I write down what people say. It's very rare that one of those…

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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…

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It is always just telling a story, regardless of the age of the reader. Except, if I'm writing something for kids, I…

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“He would write and write. He would make wonderful things happen. Some of it would be true. All of it would be…

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When I do it [writing] by myself, there's a lot more terror and uncertainty.

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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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I like going to schools and telling classes that when I was a child, I failed every "will this kid become a…

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A typical day for me is I get up at 6:00, the coffeemaker goes on automatically and the computer gets turned on.…

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If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are…

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I was a very sickly kid and suffered from chronic pneumonia, which is why we moved to the warm southern climate. I…

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I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can…

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Sometimes strange and wonderful things will pop into my head. And sometimes I will see something in the world that is the…

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More by Kate DiCamillo

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…

“If every babe who cried were still alive, well, then, the world would be a very crowded place, indeed.”

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me…

Reader, you may ask this queston. In fact, you must ask this question. Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to…

It wasn't until my fifth or sixth book where I realized I'm trying to do the same thing in every story I tell, which…

[He] had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers.

Everything about writing is hard for me except for that - the names pop into my head. That's one of the reasons why I…

Reading a story should be a fabulous, wonderful thing. The most important thing that parents can do for kids is to read with them…

You have to learn how to write each book.

“If you have no intention of loving or being loved then the whole journey is pointless”

I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have found what I am supposed to do and to get to do it.

“Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannot always…

“Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the…

There ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by…

I remember wanting to write a book with someone, the someone being Kate [DiCamillo], and we decided to write about two friends. We had…