I told him they built a statue of Schultz, and then he said that a monument is cold comfort to a dead man, and then I said that the statue was built not for Schultz, but for us--to remind us how to be human.

It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.

It is so hard to leave-until you leave.

Adult librarians are like lazy bakers: their patrons want a jelly doughnut, so they give them a jelly doughnut. Children’s librarians are ambitious bakers: 'You like the jelly doughnut? I’ll get you a jelly doughnut. But you should try my cruller, too. My cruller is gonna blow your mind, kid.

I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well—but never quite perfectly, you know?

Maybe this time she wanted to be found, and to be found by me.

The important thing is not whatever nonsense the voices are saying, but what the voices are feeling.