Before you can be anything, you have to be yourself. That's the hardest thing to find.

Because way down deep they know that civilized people have to preserve rare birds.

The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.

Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.

Nathan, how can you stand playing the same piece over and over again?" And Grandpa Nate answered, "Why don't you ask me how I can stand making love to the same woman over and over again?

It is sometimes necessary to use unnecessary words like thank you and please just to make life prettier.

I believe in courtesy. It is the way we avoid hurting people's feelings. She thought that maybe, just maybe, western civilization was in decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o'clock.