You know, when someone has been crying, something gets left in the air. It's not something you can see or smell, or feel. Or draw. But it's there.

You know, there are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say? Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?

A comedy isn’t about being funny...a comedy is about characters who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all.

You can't just skip the boring parts." "Of course I can skip the boring parts." "How do you know they're boring if you don't read them?" "I can tell." "Then you can't say you've read the whole play." "I think I can live a happy life, Meryl Lee, even if I don't read the boring parts of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." "Who knows?" she said. "Maybe you can't.

So you just went in and told him to give you two Cokes and he gave them to you?" "No, I didn't just go in and tell him to give me two Cokes. I asked for a Coke for me and a Coke for the skinny thug sitting on the library steps.

Did you find yourself?" "What?" said my sister. "Did you find yourself?" "She found me," I said.

Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches.