Being reviewed is being condescended to by your inferiors.

Owen meany who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water... remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain untouchable.

when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble.

The only way you get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.

Adolescence-is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?

I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost; he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed; and we kept praying. Even as awkward as he was, the Rev. Mr. Merrill had made it clear to us that there was no end to praying for Owen Meany.

You can give yourself a headache trying to decipher the tattoos on a naked man who’s leaping up and down on a bed.