You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.

Newspapers are even worse for me than ice cream; headlines, and the big issues that generate the headlines, are pure fat.

To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. In a family even exaggerations make perfect sense.

My life is a reading list.

My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me!

This is a writer’s lesson: To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all.

Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.