“We planned for betrayal. They planned for deceit. No one ever thought to plan for harmony.”

“Listen, I'm going to tell you this because no one else will, Franklin. Spider-Man sucks.”

“Spiderman: You're going to have to do something about those children, Stark.Tony: What children?Spiderman: The annoying, ill-mannered ones.Tony: I need more.Spiderman: Bomb Boy and Solar Flare.Tony: I think you mean Cannonball and Sunspot. What did they do this time?Spiderman: We were in the kitchen and they decided to - rather rudely - confront me about eating the leftovers in the refrigerator.Tony: Was it your food?Spiderman: No.Tony: Was it theirs?Spiderman: Possibly. It was an honest mistake. My point - I think THE point - is I won't be spoken to that way by infants.Tony: Then don't eat their food.”

“Can you define "plan" as "a loose sequence of manifestly inadequate observations and conjectures, held together by panic, indecision, and ignorance"? If so, it was a very good plan.”

“Facing the sagging middle when writing a novel, while inevitable, may be overcome by pre-planning. I divide my collection of proposed scenes into three acts, each scene inciting tension that builds toward the final crisis in Act Three. If by Act Two the emotional river isn't spilling over the banks, I reassess the plot so that once the writing is flowing I don't slide into a dry creek. The central character should be struggling to navigate life well into the end of Act One, even if her fiercest antagonist is only from within.”

“Quitting a job doesn't jump-start a dream because dreams take planning, purpose, and progress to succeed. That stuff has to happen before you quit your day job.”

“Gnawing at the forefront of Victoria's thoughts was the question that Rob had asked--was she dismissing Ted because he was white? She'd always thought herself to be open-minded, but in her romantic relationships, she'd only dated black men.”