Listen, said Beverly. Let me tell you something. There is no Very Friendly Animal Center. That cat is long gone.

Oh, my goodness, ” said Louisiana. “I’m just all filled up with feathers and regrets. And fears. I have a lot of fears.

There was something scary about watching adults sleep. It was as if no one at all were in charge of the world.

It occurred to her that nobody really knew what anybody else was upset about, and that seemed like a terrible thing.

If the wishes came true, they came true in terrible ways. Wishes were dangerous things. That was the idea you got from fairy tales.

How could you be sad, when you can sing?

It is in the doing that makes the being worthwhile.

I had a great shoe contract and glove contract with a company who paid me a lot of money never to be seen using their stuff.

It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster.

Baby steps count, as long as you are going forward. You add them all up, and one day you look back and you'll be surprised at where you might get to.

I don't like the phrase shock value. Surprise is essential in comedy, and if people are shocked by what I consider merely surprising, then that's their shock. But there is no joke without surprise.

Far better one unpurchased heart than glory's proudest name.

It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.

Cortez looked like someone newly in love, the way only twenty-four-year-olds can look.

I believe in a uniform for work, but why, because we're men, do we have to be ghettoised into grey suits?