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" I don't know what my mother was thinking, but she entered me in a Little Miss contest - Little Miss Orange Blossom, I think it was. And I don't remember anything about that, except I have one flash-bulb memory of standing on the stage and thinking, 'This is not where I should be.' "

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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

Light

Wilderness

" I was someone who wanted to be a writer but who wasn't writing. I was someone buying books on writing. I was someone telling people that I was writer. But I was not writing. "

" I think of myself as an enormously lucky person. "

" I am single and childless, but I have lots of friends and I am an aunt to three lovely children. "

" I'm at the mercy of whatever character comes into my head. "

" It's such a potent thing, to be a kid. We grow up, and we don't want to remember how everything is so beautiful and terrifying when we're young. The older you get, the more you hope to muffle things. "

" Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life. "

" Writing a novel isn't like building a brick wall. You don't figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier each time because you know what you're doing. With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time. Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope. "

" I get my inspiration from looking at the world and paying attention to people and just looking closely. Also from reading. I get so much inspiration from other authors. "

" Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift. "

" 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. "

" It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure. "

" I think that sometimes we open our hearts a little more easily to animals than we do to each other. "

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

Kate DiCamillo

Great

Writing

" In a first draft, I concentrate on moving forward and trying not to panic. "

" If you read, the world is your oyster. It truly is. Reading makes everything possible. "

" I always have a notebook with me, I eavesdrop; I write down what people say. It's very rare that one of those things will provoke a story, but I think that that kind of paying attention all the time, and keeping everything open, lets the stories come in. But where they come from is still a mystery to me. "

Kate DiCamillo

Think

Mystery

" I write in my house, at my desk, where I have Christmas lights strung over it to try and convince me that I'm having a good time. I can't really write anywhere else. "

Kate DiCamillo

Time

Good

" I was a shy, terrified kid. But I was also a kid who was lucky enough to have friends. I laughed with those friends. I had adventures. We dreamed together. I relied on them. "

" I was a kid who loved to read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I didn't have one favorite book. I had lots of favorite books: 'The Borrowers' by Mary Norton, 'Paddington' by Michael Bond, 'A Little Princess' by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 'Stuart Little' by EB White, 'A Cricket in Times Square,' all the Beverly Cleary books. "

" Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one? "

" I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved. "

" If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart. "