01c. 1964 ADIt is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
02c. 1964 ADDear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. 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. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
03c. 1964 ADThere 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 / quote ↗
04c. 1964 ADStories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
05c. 1964 ADthe story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannont always be sweetness and light.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
06c. 1964 ADThe April sun, weak but determined, shone through a castle window and from there squeezed itself through a small hole in the wall and placed one golden finger on the little mouse.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
08c. 1964 ADThere was something scary about watching adults sleep. It was as if no one at all were in charge of the world.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
09c. 1964 ADThis is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
10c. 1964 ADHe said, 'I forgive you, Pa."And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
11c. 1964 ADEdward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still. (page 103)Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
12c. 1964 ADThe world went on. People left and people died and people went to memorial services and put orange blocks of cheese into their purses. People confessed to you that they were hungry all the time. And then you got up in the morning and pretended that none of it had happened.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
13c. 1964 ADListen, said Beverly. Let me tell you something. There is no Very Friendly Animal Center. That cat is long gone.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
14c. 1964 ADIt is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
15c. 1964 ADWhat is?', he said. 'What if?' is a question that belongs to magic.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
16c. 1964 ADBut that is impossible," said Peter."Magic is always impossible," said the magician. "It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
17c. 1964 ADHe felt a wonderful certainty. The impossible, he thought, the impossible is about to happen again.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
18c. 1964 ADNot much goes on in the mind of a squirrel.Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought:Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
19c. 1964 ADGloria put a bowl of stew in Peter's hands. "Eat," she said.Peter raised the spoon to his lips. He chewed. He swallowed.It had been a long time since he had eaten anything besides tiny fish and old bread.And so when Peter had his first bite of stew, it overwhelmed him. The warmth of it, the richness of it, knocked him backward; it was as if a gentle hand had pushed him when he was not expecting it. Everything he had lost came flooding back: the garden, his father, his mother, his sister, the promises that he had made and could not keep."What's this?" said Gloria Matienne. "The boy is crying.""Shhh," said Leo. He put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Shhh. Don't worry, Peter. Everything will be good. All will be well. We will do together whatever it is that needs to be done. But for now, you must eat."Peter nodded. He raised his spoon. Again he chewed and swallowed, and again he was overcome. He could not help it. He could not stop the tears; they flowed down his cheeks and into the bowl. "It is a very good stew, Madam Matienne. he managed to say. "Truly, it is an excellent stew.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
20c. 1964 ADOnce upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
21c. 1964 ADReader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
22c. 1964 ADI love your round head,the brilliant green,the watching blue,these letters,this world, you.I am very, very hungry.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
23c. 1964 ADThere ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it.Kate DiCamillo / quote ↗
