Maybe the first time that you know you really care about something is when you think about it not being there,and when you know-you really know-that the emptinessis as much as inside you as outside you.For it falls out,that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it;but being lacked and lost,why,then we rack the value,then we find the virtue that possesion would not show us while it was ours.That's when I knew for the first time that I really did love my sister.

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?

In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.

OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not like I was reading books or anything.

Maybe this happens to you every day, but I think it was the first time I could hardly wait to show something that I'd done to someone who would care besides my mother. You know how that feels?

Mr. Powell raised an eyebrow. 'I'm a librarian,' he said. 'I always know what I'm talking about.

There's no pleasure in getting to be an old coot unless you have some fun along the way.