You see only the beautiful things when you stand still. You only see things that you don't ordinarily notice. The birds are the prettiest things, I imagine.

We were broke in a way that only kids can be broke. Our toes were black with dye from wearing boots that weren't waterproof. We had infected ear lobes and green rings around our fingers from cheap jewelry. No one ever even had a chocolate bar.

All writers have the idea that they are famous.

A lot of children grow up in poverty with flawed parents, but their inner world is still as inherently filled with wonder and innocence as children who are kept away from the city's underbelly.

Suddenly I realized that I wanted everything to be as it was when I was younger. When you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing other than a chair. A dandelion growing out of a crack in the sidewalk outside your front door is a garden. You could believe that a song your parent was singing in the evening was the most tragic opera in the world. It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you.

It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you.

The ground was silvery, as if some stars had fallen there.