Home > Work > The Tale of Despereaux
1 " Reader, do you think it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) something that you might just as well do, since,in the end, it really makes no difference to anyone but you? "
― Kate DiCamillo , The Tale of Despereaux
2 " And hope is like love...a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing. "
3 " The world is dark, and light is precious.Come closer, dear reader.You must trust me.I am telling you a story. "
4 " Despereaux was reading the story out loud to himself. He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end... "
5 " The sound of the king's music made Despereaux's soul grow large and light inside of him. "
6 " There 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. "
7 " Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light. "
8 " the 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. "
9 " The 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. "
10 " Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform. "
11 " 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. "
12 " Stories are light. "
13 " There is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. "
14 " Once 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. "
15 " Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread. "
16 " But, reader, there is no comfort in the word "farewell," even if you say it in French. "Farewell" is a word that,in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing. "
17 " Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. "
18 " Say it, reader. Say the word 'quest' out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope. "
19 " Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful. And Despereaux's love for the Princess Pea would prove, in time, to be all of these things: powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous. "
20 " Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken. "
