Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.

She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.

Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.

The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance.

I cannot remember back to a year in which I did not consider myself to be a writer, and the younger I was the bigger that capital 'W.

When there are boys you have to worry about how you look, and whether they like you, and why they like another girl better, and whether they're going to ask you to something or other. It's a strain.

Betsy. The great war is on but I hope ours is over. Please come home. Joe.