“When you're a child, what you see and hear and comprehend can be sorted into little boxes. Then, as you live and learn, all those boxes open up and become rooms. The more you experience, the bigger those rooms get. If you're lucky enough, there are some people you will love, and who will love you, long enough to see their boxes grow into vast spaces. You'll understand things that had no meaning. You'll find dark corners that only light up for the briefest moments. But when you keep getting lost, you just end up with a pile of boxes.”

“Listen to me, maggots. Listen for your lives, for that's what it could mean some day. You never see all that you see. One of the things they send you to me for is to show you what you don't see in what you see--what you don't see when you're scared, or fighting or running or fucking. No man sees al that he sees, but before you're gunslinger--those of you who don't go west, that is,--you'll see more in one single glance than some men see in a lifetime. And some of what you don't see in that glance you'll see afterwards, in the eye of your memory--if you live long enough to remember, that is. Because the difference between seeing and not seeing can be the difference between the living and dying.”

“If you can't get what you want, you end up doing something else, just to get some relief. Just to keep from going crazy. Because when you're sad enough, you look for ways to fill you up.”

“Did you ever eat a whole box of cookies right in a row? Did you ever do that? I don't mean take them into your bedroom or something. I mean open them right up in the kitchen as soon as you get home from the store and eat 'em while you're standing there? Just stare at the toaster while you're eatin' a whole goddamn box of cookies?”

“My daddy says that the moon fills up a little more every day until it just gets too full and starts to spill out. Then those moondrops fall to earth until the moon disappears altogether and has to fill up all over again. and if you're lucky enough, you'll catch one of those moondrops, because moondrops can make you see the whole world brighter.”

“Education is not filling up a box but seeing what you can create with one and don't you ever forget that!”