Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.

When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.

She's kind of funny looking. Her face is out of balance--broad forehead, button nose, freckled cheeks, and pointy ears. A slammed-together, rough sort of face you can't ignore. Still, the whole package isn't so bad. For all I know maybe she's not so wild about her own looks, but she seems comfortable with who she is, and that's the important thing.

I've never met a girl who thinks like you." "A lot of people tell me that," she said, digging at a cuticle. "But it's the only way I know how to think. Seriously. I'm just telling you what I believe. It's never crossed my mind that my way of thinking is different from other people's. I'm not trying to be different. But when I speak out honestly, everybody thinks I'm kidding or playacting. When that happens, I feel like everything is such a pain!

What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past.

Once she was out of the car and gone, my world was suddenly hollow and meaningless.

Grandfather always said school’s a place where they take sixteen years to wear down your brain. Grandfather hardly went to school either.