Sadness is a powerful foe, maybe harder to keep down than happiness.

I closed my eyes, put my right hand on top of the book, and passed it lightly across the cover. It was cool and smooth like a stone from the bottom of the brook, and it stilled me. A whole other world is inside there, I thought to myself, and that's where I want to be.

Apologizing is like spring cleaning.

...if a child waited to speak until all the grown-ups settled down and gave her some room to say her piece, the most important things would never get said.

...how do you run and play when you feel like there are bricks of the heaviest sadness weighing down every part of your body? How do you laugh and talk when there are no laughs left inside of you?

In the morning I'm like a snake in the spring: I need to lie out on a warm rock and let the sun sink into me before I can start wiggling around and get on with the day.

I know it's hard to not do well at something, and I know it's hard to need help.