[A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived.

The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.

Grandma, how old is she?" "Oh I don't know." Grandma said. "You'd have to cut off her head and count the rings in her neck.

The years went by, and Mary Alice and I grew up, Slower than we wanted to, faster than we realized.

Humor is anger that was sent to finishing school.

September 11 We thought we'd outdistanced history Told our children it was nowhere near; Even when history struck Columbine, It didn't happen here. We took down the maps in the classroom, And when they were safely furled, We told the young what they wanted to hear, That they were immune from a menacing world. But history isn't a folded-up map, Or an unread textbook tome; Now we know history's a fireman's child Waiting at home alone.

...they'd just tell you to turn the other cheek, wouldn't they?...Trouble is, Mrs. Dowdel observed, after you've turned the other cheek four times, you run out of cheeks.