“The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.”

“He landed on cheap shot, but I knocked him out of the tournament.”

“If you live life on your own terms, people will definitely not understand you”

“I am amused when goody-goodies proclaim, from the safety of their armchairs, that children are naturally prejudice-free, that they only learn to "hate" from listening to bigoted adults. Nonsense. Tolerance is a learned trait, like riding a bike or playing the piano. Those of us who actually live among children, who see them in their natural environment, know the truth: Left to their own devices, children will gang up on and abuse anyone who is even slightly different from the norm.”

“We cannot bear for our most mysterious experiences to remain unexplained. I've therefore learned...that every story has worth, since a person takes the time to tell it. The key is to listen.”

“Adrien, people get killed all the time. Since when is it your job to find out what happened to them?""I'm not usually suspected of murdering them.""You have been as long as I've known you.”

“I felt the warm brush of his fingers pushing the key into mine all the way to my heart. I focused on the key because if I looked up, I'd see what he was feeling. Worse, he'd see what I wasfeeling -- in a minute what I was feeling was going to be spilling out of me, and it didn't make any sense. It had been over long ago; we had just finally got around to saying good-bye, that was all.”