I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.

You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

It’s lovely to know that the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head.

Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.

Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.

I say, Billy, what’s the use in playing croquet when you’re doomed? He says, Frankie, what’s the use of not playing croquet when you’re doomed?

I learned the significance of my own insignificant life.

After a full belly all is poetry.

It's not enough to be American. You always have to be something else, Irish-American, German-American, and you'd wonder how they'd get along if someone hadn't invented the hyphen

A mother's love is a blessing No matter where you roam. Keep her while you have her, You'll miss her when she's gone -- Angela's Ashes.

The sky is the limit. You never have the same experience twice.

Lovers die inward that their flames conceal.

My favorite meal is turkey and mashed potatoes. I love Thanksgiving, it's just my favorite. I can have Thanksgiving all year round.

I give myself strength by staying away from any music.

REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.

If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it.

The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.

I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).

In every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone's brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others.

Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.

The Internet is accelerating the speed of acceptance and social justice.