“Mom has the Touch. She knows what flowers go with what occasions, what hors d'oeuvres work with what people. She believes passionately in the power of food to heal, restore, and stimulate relationships, and she has built a following of loyal customers who really hope she's right. If she's wrong, says Sonia, no one wants to know.”

“She shoved her can right under his chin. "Don't mess with seniors," she growled at him.”

“If she's really psychic," Zack said when he saw Tanisha's photo at school, "why does she need a doorbell?”

“I hope you'll have the kind of life where what you stand for is so important that it makes some people outright hostile. You won't know how strong your beliefs really are until you have to defend them.”

“Almost Homeby Sugar Mae ColeHome isn’t always a place you picture in your mindWith furniture and cookies and music playing and people laughing.Home is something you can carry around like a dreamAnd let it grow in your heart until you’re ready for it.Losing things helps you appreciate when you find them againAnd finding things gives you hope that when you lose thingsIt might not be forever.Once, long ago, a girl lost her home, but she didn’t lose her dream.She hung on to it as the wind kept trying to blow it away,But that just made it stronger.So now she has keys and walls of many colorsAnd people around her who think she’s something.”

“There they were, the movers and shakers of Benjamin Franklin Hight - the sports stars, the cheerleaders, the good, the great, the gorgeous - bent over their pizzas.Trish sensed my angst and said, "My mother says girls like Lisa Shooty get the ultimate curse known to man.""What's that?""Too much too soon."I looked at poor, cursed Lisa who had been sprayed with sex appeal at birth. She had gleaming teeth and long, raven-black curls. She threw back her head and laughed with diamond-studded joy."When do you think the curse takes effect?" I asked."Not in our lifetime," Trish answered.”

“But through it all I held Mrs. Pettibone's words in my heart-the ones she spoke to me after the funeral when she took my hand, looked into my face and said, "You've got your father's eyes.”