“Is there anything more pathetic than a flower that doesn’t get enough sunlight and dies, because it couldn’t get out of bed until four in the afternoon?”

“The housekeeper had been there that afternoon. I could always tell because the sheets on the bed would be tucked in so tight, trying to get them out was like wrestling an alligator.”

“I don't need anything else. I get out of bed every morning and face the world because you're in it.”

“How plants grow: Quickly. Most plants grow fast and die young. People get seventy years, a bean plant gets four months, maybe five. Once the itty-bitty baby plant peeks out of the ground, it sprouts leaves, so it can absorb more sun. Then it sleeps, eats, and sunbathes until it’s ready to flower—a teenage plant. This is a bad time to be a rose or a zinnia or a marigold, because people attack with scissors and cut off what’s pretty. But plants are cool. If the rose is picked, the plant grows another one. It needs to bloom to produce more seeds.”

“I wasn't going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I'd feel ashamed, which meant I'd get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn't get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing—homelessness. If you can't get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.”

“If you can't get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away”