“Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn't sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.”

“You can't just skip the boring parts.""Of course I can skip the boring parts.""How do you know they're boring if you don't read them?""I can tell.""Then you can't say you've read the whole play.""I...”

“Whatever it means to be a friend, taking a black eye for someone has to be in it.”

“I almost cried. But I didn't, because if you're in seventh grade and you cry while wearing a blue floral cape and yellow tights with white feathers on the butt, you just have to curl up and die som...”

“Would you have left a guy being beat up to go find a teacher?' I asked.My father, he wiped his hand across his face, and what was left behind was a smile.Really, a smile.'Not in a million years,' h...”

“Lizzie Bright Griffin, do you ever wish the world would just go ahead and swallow you whole?""Sometimes I do," she said, and then smiled. "but sometimes I figure I should just go ahead and swallow it.”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Some experiences are universal. A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than books.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books”

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”

“I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.”

“Each voice carries a portion of value, no matter how unpalatable or distasteful that voice may be: no one person, government, ideology, transnational, or religious institution can own and dominate ...”