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98e3846
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Love!' said the princess. She stamped her foot. 'Why must everyone always speak of love?
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Kate DiCamillo |
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d3e6734
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The world was beautiful. It surprised me, how beautiful it kept on insisting on being. In spite of all the lies, it was beautiful.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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6108d0d
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I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart." - Gloria Dump"
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Kate DiCamillo |
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befb733
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Perhaps what matters when all is said and done is not who puts us down but who picks us up.
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middle-school
resilience
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Kate DiCamillo |
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4a642ab
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A squirrel flies in," said Dr. Meescham. "This I did not expect at all. It is what I love about life, that things happen which I do not expect. When I was a girl in Blundermeecen, we left the window open for this very reason, even in the winter. We did it because we believed something wonderful might make its way to us through the open window. Did wonderful things find us? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But tonight it has happened! Something ..
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open
openness
window
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Kate DiCamillo |
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788d262
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Who can say what astonishments are hidden inside the most mundane being?
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Kate DiCamillo |
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ecefe30
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I have learned how to love. And it's a terrible thing. I'm broken. My heart is broken. Help me.
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kate-dicamillo
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Kate DiCamillo |
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5132b8a
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I bet you didn't think I'd come back. But here I am. I come to save you." Too late, thought Edward as Bryce climbed the pole and worked at the wires that were tied around his wrists. I am nothing but a hollow rabbit. Too late, thought Edward as Bryce pulled the nails out of his ears. I am only a doll made of china. But when the last nail was out and he fell forward into Bryce's arms, the rabbit felt a rush of relief, and the feeling of reli..
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Kate DiCamillo |
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167b678
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Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannot always be sweetness and light.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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9f686ca
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Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light." And because Despereaux wanted very much to live, he said, "Once upon a time..."
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Kate DiCamillo |
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84aadc1
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But she couldn't help it. She did hope. She was hoping. She had been hoping all along.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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b834764
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Holy unanticipated occurrences!
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Kate DiCamillo |
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ec792e3
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But in truth,' said Bull, 'we are going nowhere. That my friend, is the irony of our constant movement.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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2aff9ee
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Normally, Edward would have found intrusive, clingy behavior of this sort very annoying, but there was something about Sarah Ruth. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to do more for her. (page 135)
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help
protection
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Kate DiCamillo |
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15dfa78
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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.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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afda2de
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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 it.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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bbee9f0
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And he discovered, finally, the source of the honey-sweet sound. The sound was music. The sound was King Phillip playing his guitar and singing for his daughter, the Princess Pea, every night before she fell asleep. Hidden in a hole in the wall of the princess's bedroom, the mouse listened with all his heart. The sound of the King's music made Despereaux's soul grow large and light inside of him. Oh," he said, "it sounds like heaven. It sme..
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Kate DiCamillo |
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3d42a4b
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Things are not at all what they seem to be: oh no, not at all.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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3bdd2a6
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All of God's creatures have names, every last one of them. Of that I am sure: of that I have no doubt at all.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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8d4bb6b
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I love your round head, the brilliant green, the watching blue, these letters, this world, you. I am very, very hungry.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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1798c12
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It seems to be that way with most things. No one to do the really disagreeable jobs except oneself.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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f3d9fca
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Do you know what it means to be emphatic? I will tell you: It means that when you are being forcibly taken to a dungeon, when you have a large knife at your back, when you are trying to be brave, you are able, still, to think for a moment of the person who is holding the knife.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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a2146e4
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If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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b14162b
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What matters when all is said and done is not who puts us down, but who picks us up.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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ab931a2
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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."
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Kate DiCamillo |
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505e776
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That squid is a villain," said Flora out loud. "He needs to be vanquished. He's eating a boat. And he's going to eat all of the people on the boat." "Yes, well, loneliness makes us do terrible things," said Dr. Meescham. "And that is why the picture is there, to remind me of this. Also, because the other Dr. Meescham painted it when he was young and joyful." Good grief, thought Flora. What did he paint when he was old and depressed?"
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Kate DiCamillo |
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47ea635
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Edward 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.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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d1045cd
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The 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.
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perserverance
poverty
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Kate DiCamillo |
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d476196
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The words were good words, Ulysses felt, maybe even great words, but the list was very incomplete. He was just getting started. The words needed to be arranged, fussed with, put in the order of his heart.
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poetry
words
writing
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Kate DiCamillo |
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12da7f0
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When I was a girl in Blundermeecen we wondered always if we would see each other again. Each day was uncertain. So, to say good-bye to someone was uncertain, too. Would you see them again? Who could say? Blundermeecen was a place of dark secrets, unmarked graves, terrible curses. Trolls were everywhere! So we said good-bye to each other the best way we could. We said: I promise to always turn back toward you.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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abd2663
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At least Lester had the decency to weep at his act of perfidy. Reader, do you know what 'perfidy' means? I have a feeling you do, based on the scene that unfolded here. But you should look up the word in your dictionary, just to be sure.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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17c9cd9
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There is somebody who loves me," said Despereaux. "And I love her and that is the only thing that matters to me."
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love
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Kate DiCamillo |
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bdae725
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Don't drop him," said Peter's mother to his father. "Don't you dare drop him." She was laughing. "I will not," said his father. "I could not." For he is Peter Augustus Duchene, and he will always return to me. Again and again, Peter's father threw him up in the air. Again and again, Peter felt himself suspended in nothingness for a moment, just a moment, and then he was pulled back, returned to the sweetness of the earth and the warmth of h..
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Kate DiCamillo |
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54aad90
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Flora's heart, the lonely, many-armed squid of it, flipped and flailed inside her.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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505c1fb
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He let the light from the upstairs world enter him and fill him. He gasped aloud with the wonder of it.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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5bbf858
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You can't always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now.
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inspirational
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Kate DiCamillo |
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4c31343
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When the other Dr. Meescham was alive and I could not sleep, do you know what he would do for me? This man would put on his slippers and he would go out into the kitchen and he would fix for me sardines and crackers. You know sardines? Little fishes in a can. He would put these little fishes onto crackers for me, and then I would hear him coming back down the hallway, carrying the sardines and humming, returning to me. Such tenderness. To h..
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Kate DiCamillo |
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6c5742b
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I lay there and thought how life was like a Littmus Lozenge, how the sweet and the sad were all mixed up together and how hard it was to separate them out. It was confusing.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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c3b67be
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It was the strangest things, how happiness came out of nowhere and inflated your soul.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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cbe33a1
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The sound of the king's music made Despereaux's soul grow large and light inside of him.
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Kate DiCamillo |
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657266b
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She said the words, and then she had a strange moment of seeing them, hanging there over her head. "You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!" thought Flora. " --
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sentences
speaking
squirrels
vacuums
words
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Kate DiCamillo |
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e1879af
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Are you a man or a mouse?
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Kate DiCamillo |
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276e0d6
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Stories are light.
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stories
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Kate DiCamillo |
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8a4f9ea
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Her words sounded the way all those things made him feel, as if the world, the real world, had been punched through, so that he could see something wonderful and dazzling on the other side of it.
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Kate DiCamillo |