“A person's birthday should be a special day, a wonderful day, a day of pure celebration for the luck of being born!”

“My mom says that when it rains you never feel like you should be anywhere but home.”

“This was different: the feeling of being chosen. Out of everybody in the world...this boy had picked him as the one he liked best of all.”

“That's the real mystery, isn't it? Not whether he was a common merchant or the queen's son, but how he could understand so much about human nature. And write about it in a way that still rings true, all these years later.' ". . . " 'That's Shakespeare's secret. . .”

“There is a difference between giving into something and accepting it.”

“A good friend is someone you can count on. No matter what.”

“That was the very heart of friendship...your willingness to help each other in a jam, to take a friend's problems as your very own.”