“Never ask why, always ask what.”

“Ask a burning question, get a burning answer”

“Pure love was always difficult to witness. Why was that, she wondered? Because it was so rare? So beautiful? SO damned unattainable for most of the poor saps muddling through this life?”

“Persistance is the quality of winners. Successful people never never give up”

“When we finish a book, why do we hold it in both hands and gaze at it as if it were somehow alive?”

“There are certain children who are told they are too sensitive, and there are certain adults who believe sensitivity is a problem that can be fixed in the way that crooked teeth can be fixed and made straight. And when these two come together you get a fairytale, a kind of story with hopelessness in it.I believe there is something in these old stories that does what singing does to words. They have transformational capabilities, in the way melody can transform mood.They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.”

“I kept trying to find a way to turn myself so that I couldn't see the telephone poles or be in the path of father's breath. I was feeling dizzy and then very sick and the father was shouting, 'WHAT THE--GO TO THE HEAD, DO IT IN THE HEAD! DON'T PUKE ON ME, CLYDE! CLYDE!'I never did finish my letter to Jesus. I tried for a while but I couldn't think of anything else to say besides, Have a Good Summer and Stay Crazy.”