“You never know what you're getting into when you stick your nose in other people's rubbish.”

“Horehound sticks are meant to be shared with friends, don't you think?' She was dead wrong about that: Horehound sticks were meant to be gobbled down in solitary gluttony, and preferably in a locked room, but I didn't dare say so.”

“And Miss Ophelia?" he asked, getting round to her at last. "Miss Ophelia? Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, we're all rather worried about her." Ned recoiled as if a wasp had gone up his nose. "Oh? What's the trouble? Nothing serious, I hope." "She's gone all green," I said. "I think it's chlorosis. Dr. Darby thinks so too.”

“Still, one of my Rules of Life is this: When you want something, bite your tongue.”

“When you're that age, you sometimes have a great enthusiasm that is very deep and very narrow, and that is something that has always intrigued me-- that world of the eleven-year-old that is so quickly lost.”

“Mother Goose!I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult.”

“Whenever I'm with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.”