“If you ask me the man's short a hat size or two but he's harmless. Not like the Texas Kid or the Tuscon Kid. Drat, he's not even like Billy the Kid. Now those are outlaws."His assurances did little to calm her nerves. Apparently the only bandits he took seriously were the ones belonging to a society of human goats.”

“Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks;One burnt her daddy up and then there were six.Six little crazy kids playing with a hive;One tattooed himself to death and then there were five.Five little crazy kids on a cellar door;One went all schizo and then there were four.Four little crazy kids going out to sea;One wouldn't say a word and then there were three.Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo;One jerked himself too much and then there were two.Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun;One a took a bunch of pills and then there was one.One little crazy kid left all alone;He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none.”

“Kraft was a skinny, harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted only to be liked, and was destined to be disappointed in even so humble and degrading an ambition. Instead, of being liked, he was dead, a bleeding cinder on the barbarous pile whom nobody had heard in those last precious moments while the plane with one wing plummeted.”

“A little kid asks my dad why that man is chopping down the tree.Dad: He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch - by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.”

“I guess it's like James Joyce when he was a kid, you know. He hung out with all the great writers of the day, and he was a little kid, like, with tennis shoes on, and they said 'Look at this lame!' They didn't use those words in those days. They said 'God, here comes this nut.' And he told them, 'I'm great!' And he sat with them, and he loved to be with them, and it ended up that he was great.”

“Scarlet . . .” Silas begins in a serious tone. He started using “the tone” when we were kids to remind me that he’s older than I am. It annoys me just as much now as it did then, only now it’s less acceptable for me to push him into the mud for it.”