I say, 'Don't lose your heart, Rube.' And very clearly, without moving, my brother answers me. He says, 'I'm not tryin' to lose it, Cam. I'm tryin' to find it.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

… it was raining on Himmel Street when the world ended for Liesel Meminger. The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.

I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.

Please, trust me, I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

Sometimes I just survive. But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

We all encounter things that may seem dim and puzzling at first, but when we actively explore them, we find bold, undauntable light igniting the way from the inside. From within.

She abandoned the garden, and the mums and asters that had trusted her to see them through to the first frost hung their waterlogged heads.

The French have the right respect for dogs--in France we chiens get to go to lunch and dinner anytime, anywhere.

We should not be afraid when praying to God to give expression to a definite desire even though we are in doubt at the time we are praying whether it is really the right thing to pray for or not.

Mind is the great lever of all things.

Like most of the other teachers, I'd done a bit of teaching and we all think we're great at what we do, but you realize that normally you have an audience who are all onside, who all want to listen.

For me, the genders are an essential element of numbers and letters, not something that could be removed from them.

If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.

All the new media are art forms which have the power of imposing, like poetry, their own assumptions.

Where there is faith there is an awareness of holiness.