. . . Jess believed, that she thought he was the best. It was not the kind of best that counted either at school or at home, but it was a genuine kind of best. He kept the knowledge of it buried inside himself like a pirate treasure. He was rich, very rich, but no one could know about it for now except his fellow outlaw, Julia Edmunds.

If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.

It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading.

. . . Jess believed, that she thought he was the best. It was not the kind of best that counted either at school or at home, but it was a genuine kind of best. He kept the knowledge of it buried inside himself like a pirate treasure. He was rich, very rich, but no one could know about it for now except his fellow outlaw, Julia Edmunds.

As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.

It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

When my husband died, people kept telling me not to cry. People kept trying to help me to forget. But I didn't want to forget. [...] So I realize, that if it's hard for me, how much harder it must be for you.