“So often I was defined by what I could not have.”

“I think you calm crazy people down because you're so eager to please that you never make them feel bad.”

“But, when you feel invisible, there is no end to the trouble you can get into.”

“so the story goes but theres somethingyou should know before i walk away and i blow the ending i never want to be without you oh no here i go now you know what i feel about you theres no running must have been wrong to doubt you oh there i go no control and i'm fallen so now you know”

“I love people who play guitars on roofs!" said Rose, hopping along the pavement in one of her sudden happy moods. "Don't you?""Never knew anyone else who did it!""Don't you like Tom?""Of course I do. But I don't know about all the other guitar-on-roof players! They might be really awful people, with just that one good thing about them. Playing guitars on roofs... or bagpipes... Or drums... Sarah would like that, and Saffy could have the bagpipes! Caddy could have a harp.... What about Mum?""One of those gourds filled with beans!" said Rose at once. "And Daddy could have a grand piano. On a flat roof. With a balcony and pink flowers in pots around the edge! And I'll have a very loud trumpet! What about you?""I'll just listen," said Indigo.”

“I hadn't done any fooling around in so long, I didn't know what to do. I sort of wanted to lose weight and take up piano before I got into another relationship.”

“But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy. There were some Italian visitors once, they were cheering us on, Brandon and myself, and they thought that Achilles and Hector had come back to life. So they said.'But which is which? One dragged through the dust by the other ...The king says, 'You turn your boy out beautifully. No nobleman could do more.''I don't want him to be Achilles,' he says, 'I only want him not to be flattened.”