“a few bad apples is no reason not to visit the orchard.”

“If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples.”

“I picked up a lot of my arguing-with-Mom techniques from Mimsy. She always says if you state the facts, Mom won't argue with you. And it's true. I used this approach once when I was little, after I got home from a visit with Mimsy. I wanted to eat a chocolate bar for a snack but mom wanted me to have an apple. I refused, saying I have never had a bad candy bar but have had plenty of bad apples. Mom relented and let me have my chocolate. But not before saying, "All right. No bad apples for the bad apple." It was still worth it.”

“[...] during one train stop, I watched as another guard with a spirit of empathy, ran out into an apple orchard and picked apples. He carried his jacket like a bag and filled it with apples. The kind German came to our open train window and handed us each an apple. The juicy apple tasted so delicious. I so appreciated that apple and his unusual compassion.”

“Come clean with a child heartLaugh as peaches in the summer windLet rain on a house roof be a songLet the writing on your facebe a smell of apple orchards on late June.”

“A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard -- by stealing what he has a taste for, and can carry off”