“The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness.”

“So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didn't forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness is a reflex for when you can't stand wha...”

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

“The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance and hope to be morally good, but it is not considere...”

“Every spot on earth is particular, detailed, and incomprehensibly complex.”

“There were no toys under the bed--that wasn't why he liked it. Why he liked it was that there wasn't anything under the bed--no chickens, no Joey, no Eloise, no sheep, no "no"s. He could lie under ...”

“Nobody works better under pressure. They just work faster.”

“Youth, with all its accompanying risks, humiliations, and uncertainties, the pressure to do it all before its too late.”

“We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?”

“She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond","What does?""This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal.”

“I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.”

“True friends are like diamonds bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.”