“I handed the test in five minutes before the end of the day. Mrs. Baker took it calmly, then reached into her bottom drawer for an enormous red pen with a wide felt tip. "Stand here and we'll see how you've done," she said, which is sort of like a dentist handing you a mirror and saying, "Sit here and watch while I drill a hole in your tooth.”

“A comedy isn't about being funny," said Mrs. Baker. "We talked about this before.""A comedy is about character who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all. That's how I know.""Suppose you can't see it?""That's the daring part," said Mrs. Baker.”

“...and she ran out of the diesel combustion and right to me and we held each other and we were not empty at all. "Holling," she said. "I was so afraid I wouldn't find you." "I was standing right here, Heather." I said. "I'll always be standing right here.”

“And it really doesn't matter if we're under our desks with our hands over our heads or not, does it? No, said Mrs. Baker. It doesn't really matter. So, why are we practicing? She thought for a minute. Because it gives comfort, she said. People like to think that if they're prepared then nothing bad can really happen. And perhaps we practice because we feel as if there's nothing else we can do because sometimes it feels as if life is governed by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

“If Mrs. Baker Hates your guts, why don't get some.”

“She came over and looked at the picture. Then she took my hand. You know what that feels like?Like what the astronauts will feel when they step onto the moon for the very first time.”

“On Saturday mornings during deliveries, I'd practice picking out new words in Jane Eyre, sounding out the ones that needed sounding out—and I'm not lying, there were plenty. "'A new servitude! There is something in that,' I soliloquized." I mean, who talks like that? Do you know how long it takes to sound out a word like soliloquized? And even after you do, you have no idea what the stupid word means except that it probably just means "said," which is what stupid Charlotte Brontë should have said in the first place. When I delivered Mrs. Mason's groceries, she saw that I had Jane Eyre stuck under my arm. "Oh," she said, "that was my favorite novel in school." "It was?" I soliloquized.”