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

I know. That sounds like a lie. But Presbyterians know that every so often a lie isn't all that bad, and I figured that this was about the best place it could happen.

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.

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.

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

We were both chumps. But you know what? It's not so bad when you're chumps together.

Mrs. Daugherty was keeping my bowl of cream of wheat hot, and she had a special treat with it, she said. It was bananas. In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.