“In most cases, it is more satisfying to get a friend's answering machine and leave a cheery, tangible trace of your sincere commitment to the friendship than it is to engage in actual conversation.”

“A friend sat next to a nun on a plane. He asked her what she missed most. "Wearing blue jeans," she replied.”

“On the occasions where we do have to participate, to do more than nothing, it is desirable to have a glass of wine to soften all the everything.”

“If you want to grow up to be a big, strong pea, you have to eat your candy," Papa Pea would say.”

“ADMIRE means, I really look up to you and the way you are with your cookies. You remind me of what is good and possible in this world.”

“To get a true sense of the book, I have to spend a few moments inside. I'll glance at the first couple pages, then flip around to somewhere in the middle, see if the language matches me somehow. It's like dating, only with sentences......It could be something as simple yet weirdly potent as a single word (tangerine). We're meant to be, that sentence and me. And when it happens, you just know.”

“I am a slow reader, and fast eater; I wish it were the other way around.”