You're going to pee in someone's suitcase?" "Do you have any other ideas?" And suddenly Miracolina begins to snicker, then giggle, then giggle, then cackle uncontrollably. "He's going to pee in someone's suitcase!" "Quiet! Do you want people on the bus to hear you?" But Miracolina is beyond help. She's entered into a fullfledged laughter fit-the kind that leaves your stomach hurting. "They're gonna open their suitcase," she blurts between bursts of glee, "And their clothes’ll be full of pee!

...One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.

You never realize the holes a person leaves behind until you fall into them.

Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity

You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.

Incredible. It never ceases to amaze Starkey how far society will go to protect the children it loves and to discard the ones it doesn’t.

Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.