Quotes from The Magician's Elephant

“It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“It is a bad thing to have love and nowhere to put it.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“Magic is always impossible.... It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it's magic.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“How will the world change if we do not question it?”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“That is surely the truth, at least for now. But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“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, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“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, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“What was it like... to have someone who knew you would always return and who welcomed you with open arms?”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it?”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“Longing is not always a reciprocal thing.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“[He] had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“There is a lot of love in him, a lot of love in his heart... And he is up there with no one and nothing to love. It is a bad thing to have love and no where to put it.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“She was working to remind herself of who she was. She was working to remember that somewhere in another place entirely she was known and loved.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“Things are not at all what they seem to be: oh no, not at all.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“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.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“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 his father's waiting arms.

"See?" said his father to his mother. "Do you see how he always comes back to me?”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it?"

"The world cannot be changed," said Gloria. "The world is what the world is and has forever been."

"No," said Leo Matienne softly, "I will not believe that. For here is Peter standing before us, asking us to make it something different.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“Perhaps this is a dream, said Madam La Vaughn from her chair. Perhaps the whole thing has been nothing but a dream.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“What is?', he said. 'What if?' is a question that belongs to magic.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“I intended only lilies. That was my intention: a bouquet of lilies. - The Magician”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“But 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 from The Magician's Elephant

“Truly, I did not intend to harm you, he said. That was never my intention.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“She was terribly pleased, because she had always, secretly, deep within her heart, believed that she could fly. And now here she was, doing what she had long suspected she could do, and she could not deny that it was gratifying in the extreme.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“If the world held magic powerful enough to make the elephant appear, then there must exist, too, magic in equal measure, magic powerful enough to undo what had been done. ”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“I intended lilies, said the magician. but in the clutches of a desparate desire to do something extraordinary, I called down a greater magic and inadvertently caused you a profound harm. I will now try to undo what I have done.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“The longer he marched, the more convinced Peter became that things were indeed hopeless and that an elephant was a ridiculous answer to any question- but a particularly ridiculous answer to a question posed by the human heart.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

“Gloria 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 from The Magician's Elephant

“If every babe who cried were still alive, well, then, the world would be a very crowded place, indeed.”
― Kate DiCamillo, quote from The Magician's Elephant

About the author

Popular quotes

“Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at those trees, that sky on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin

“we saw something swimming in the water, and pulled toward it, thinking it a coyote; but we soon recognized a large grizzly bear, swimming directly across the channel. Not having any weapon, we hurriedly pulled for the schooner, calling out, as we neared it, “A bear! a bear!” It so happened that Major Miller was on deck, washing his face and hands. He ran rapidly to the bow of the vessel, took the musket from the hands of the sentinel, and fired at the bear, as he passed but a short distance ahead of the schooner. The bear rose, made a growl or howl, but continued his course. As we scrambled up the port-aide to get our guns, the mate, with a crew, happened to have a boat on the starboard-aide, and, armed only with a hatchet, they pulled up alongside the bear, and the mate struck him in the head with the hatchet. The bear turned, tried to get into the boat, but the mate struck his claws with repeated blows, and made him let go. After several passes with him, the mate actually killed the bear, got a rope round him, and towed him alongside the schooner, where he was hoisted on deck. The carcass weighed over six hundred pounds. It was found that Major Miller’s shot had struck the bear in the lower jaw, and thus disabled him. Had it not been for this, the bear would certainly have upset the boat and drowned all in it. As it was, however, his meat served us a good turn in our trip up to Stockton.”
― William T. Sherman, quote from Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman

“That which begins will also end.”
― John O'Brien, quote from Leaving Las Vegas

“God won’t protect you from what He can perfect you through.”
― Kevin Alan Milne, quote from The One Good Thing

“Hermione uzanıp yanağına dokundu, kederle gülümsüyordu. “Gördüğüm en mutsuz gelinsin.”


Lucy gözlerini kapadı. “Mutsuz değilim. Ben sadece şey hissediyorum...”


Ama ne hissettiğini bilmiyordu. Ne hissetmesi gerekiyordu ki?Kimse bunun için eğitmemişti onu.Bütün eğitimi boyunca; dadısı,mürebbiyesi ve Bayan Moss’un Okulu’nda geçirdiği üç yıl boyunca kimse ona bunun dersini vermemişti. Neden kimse bunun dikiş nakıştan ve yerel danslardan daha önemli olduğunu fark etmemişti?

“Ben...” Artık anlamıştı. “Ben veda ediyormuş gibi hissediyorum.”

Hermione hayretle gözlerini kırpıştırdı. “Kime?”


Kendime...”
― Julia Quinn, quote from On the Way to the Wedding

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.