“Ironic," Betty Lou said at last. "The cereus insists on sunlight---that's why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flowers for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers."It takes from the day," I said, "gives to the night.”

“I think of the flower in the bud: huddled, compressed, dark. Yet somehow it feels the night, knows moon from sun. It waits...waits.”

“He said even if it's too cloudy to see, the sun will still rise, it will still be there."But that's the whole point," I said. "Seeing it.""Is it?" he said.”

“And each night in bed I thought of her as the moon came through my window. I could have lowered my shade to make it darker and easier to sleep, but I never did. In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.”

“Throughout the day, Stargirl had been dropping money. She was the Johnny Appleseed of loose change: a penny here, a nickel there. Tossed to the sidewalk, laid on a shelf or bench. Even quarters. "I hate change," she said. "It's so . . . jangly.""Do you realize how much you must throw away in a year?" I said."Did you ever see a little kid's face when he spots a penny on a sidewalk?”

“As we meandered, she said my name three times:"Stargirl?""Yes?""That was better than TV.""It was.""Stargirl?""Yes?""Does the sun do that everyday?""Yes.""Stargirl?""Yes?""Everyday is sun day.”

“Where were we?" she said. "Getting credit," I said."What about it?""Well, it's nice to get credit."The spokes of her rear wheel spun behind the curtain of her long skirt. She looked like a photograph from a hundred years ago. She turned her wide eyes on me. "Is it?" she said.”