It's what I was born for, isn't it? If I don't go, why am I alive?

Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for food, but the real hunger, the deep hunger, for family, for love, for belonging.

Who would I be, if other good souls did not make up for my shortcomings?

It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.

We're all trying to decide whether your scores up there are a miracle or a mistake." "A habit.

Mom," said Peter, "nobody thinks you're a lackwit, if that's what you're worried about." Lackwit? In what musty drawer of some dead English professor's dust-covered desk did you find that word? I assure you that never in my worst nightmares did I ever suppose that I was a lackwit.

Darkness bound them closer than light.