“...they'd just tell you to turn the other cheek, wouldn't they?...Trouble is, Mrs. Dowdel observed, after you've turned the other cheek four times, you run out of cheeks.”

“Besdies, to turn me ladylike might have rendered me useless and possibly ornamental.”

“And I'll tell you something else for free. If you set a foot over that doorsill, I'll wring your red neck.”

“This is how you hold onto your family. You hold them with open hands so they are free to find futures of their own. It's just that simple.”

“Read to your childrenTwenty minutes a day;You have the time,And so do they.Read while the laundry is in the machine;Read while the dinner cooks;Tuck a child in the crook of your armAnd reach for the library books.Hide the remote,Let the computer games cool,For one day your children will be off to school;Remedial? Gifted? You have the choice;Let them hear their first talesIn the sound of your voice.Read in the morning;Read over noon;Read by the light ofGoodnight Moon.Turn the pages together,Sitting close as you'll fit,Till a small voice beside you says,"Hey, don't quit.”

“[A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived.”

“The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.”