“I don't care if the whole town comes, as long as you come, Bailey boy.”

“The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in.”

“Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.”

“Am I supposed to do something important? It doesn't seem enough to merely take up space on this planet in this country in this state in this town in this family.”

“I don't want tobecause boysdon't write poetry.Girls do.”

“Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.”

“Lizzie said that if you imagined you were standing on the moon, looking down on the earth, you wouldn't be able to see the itty-bitty people racing around worrying you wouldn't see the barn falling in or the cow stuck in the pond; you wouldn't see the mean Granger kids squirting mustard on your white dress. You would see the most beautiful blue oceans and green lands, and the whole earth would look like a giant blue-and-green marble floating in the sky. Your worries would seem so small, maybe invisible.”