“She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.”

“Well, she thought, I'm certainly bright. She had wanted to meet a new boy and when she finally did meet one she didn't even find out his name”

“If they had been riding in a car, she would have waited for him to go around and open the door for her, but riding in a truck is different”

“The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.”

“She means well, but she always manages to do the wrong thing. She has a real talent for it.”

“If she can't spell, she shouldn't be a librarian.”

“All her life she had wanted to squeeze the toothpaste really squeeze it,not just one little squirt...The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it was a toothpaste birthday cake”