“I'm too old to figure out the rights and wrongs of everything.”

“I push the big red button,and it doesn`t work!”

“Everything will need selling, or moving, or rearranging. But there's no right place for any of it, including the most awkward piece of furniture: me. I'm too empty to sell. I'm too replaceable to stay in Wellsford, and I'm too big for Celeste's apartment.”

“Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place.”

“People shouldn't second guess God. If everything happened for a reason, it was usually too difficult to figure out what that reason was. Better to just accept things as they were, deal with them and enjoy the weather when it came, stay inside when it rained.”

“Das Menschenherz ist wie das Erdreich, oft hart und spröde. Man muß darin den Samen der Liebe säen, sie mit Geduld hegen und pflegen wie jede andere Pflanze, daß sie dort Wurzeln schlägt und gedeiht.”

“You and I know how to stay alive in an urban community. As humans, we are genetically encoded to adapt to many environments when given proper teaching from more experienced humans. We know not to talk to strangers, not to cross on the red light, and not to leave the doors unlocked. Most of us are more or less successful and only occasionally make a life-threatening mistake. Some of us may have an additional set of survival skills, depending on our circumstances. We can live with a debilitating disease, be shot into space and live in a capsule, or survive summer camp. After summer camp, we are still the same people we were before summer camp, except now we know write our name in our underware, not chew gum found under the bed, and to stay away from things that look like sticks but are, in fact, snakes.”