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

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.

The light made the snowballs look yellow. Or at least I hoped that was the cause.

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

Okay, so maybe sometimes the real world is smiles and miracles.

Do you ever wonder what it's like to be so angry that you...And then something happens, and after that, everyone figures that's what you're like, and that's what you're always going to be, and so you just decide to be it? But the whole time you're thinking, Am I going to be like him? Or am I already like him? And then you get angrier, because maybe you are, and you want... He stopped. He wiped at his eyes. I'm not lying. My brother wiped at his eyes.

Whatever it means to be a friend, taking a black eye for someone has to be in it.