“Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.”

“Maniac Magee was not born in a dump.”

“Nobody knows who said it first, but somebody must have: 'Kid's gotta be a maniac.”

“Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?'No,' I said.People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.”

“I thought of the stone angel. I pictured the snow falling over it, two classes of snow rising on the top of its wings. So silent, the both of them, the angel and the snow. I pretended I was the stone angel. I close my eyes and pretended as hard as I could, and after a while I was convinced I could feel wings sprouting from my shoulders. I wanted to look, to see my wings, but I was an angel stone, so I could not move.”

“The sounds of extinct birds may be preserved in the songs of mockingbirds”

“Whos love do you cherrish more? Hers or theirs? when you deside that, it's all downhill from there.”