Vowels were something else. He didn't like them and they didn't like him. There were only five of them, but they seemed to be everywhere. Why, you could go through twenty words without bumping into some of the shyer consonants, but it seemed as if you couldn't tiptoe past a syllable without waking up a vowel. Consonants, you know pretty much where you stood, but you could never trust a vowel.

Be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.

Maybe it was the angle, but her fawn's eyes, looking up at me, seemed larger than ever. I had to make an effort to keep my balance lest I fall into them.

The blanket was there, but it was the boy's embrace that covered and warmed him.

He said even if it's too cloudy to see, the sun will still rise, it will still be there. "But that's the whole point," I said. "Seeing it." "Is it?" he said.

Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.

Happy". I had not heard that word since Mr. Milgrom spoke it at the last Hanukkah. I asked him the question that had been on my mind since then. "Tata, what is happy?" He looked at me and at the ceiling and back to me. "Did you ever taste an orange?" he said.