E.L. Konigsburg

“It is sometimes necessary to use unnecessary words like thank you and please just to make life prettier.”

“Nathan, how can you stand playing the same piece over and over again?" And Grandpa Nate answered, "Why don't you ask me how I can stand making love to the same woman over and over again?”

“Since language is the only tool with which writers can reflect and shape a culture, it must be transformed into art. Language is not a limitation on the art of literature; it is a glorification. It has been the scaffolding inside which nations and philosophies have been built, and the language of literature has added the ornamental pediment by which the culture is remembered.”

“Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.”

“...I didn't run away to come home the same. -Claudia”

“I've been the oldest child since before you were born”

“It takes more courage to disturb the neighborhood than it takes to disturb the universe. And the price is often higher.”

“I want all the books on the she”

“He also learned to regard each port of call as part of the journey and not as destination. Every voyage begins when you do.”

“I waited for her to catch up, and when I did, she slowed down, and I missed seeing the light in her hair. I never told Nadia how much I liked seeing the halo the sunlight made of her hair. Sometimes silence is a habit that hurts.”

“Friendship depends on interlocking time, place, and state of mind.”

“I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It's hollow.”

“Because we are human we have a long childhood, and one of the jobs of that childhood is to sculpt our brains. We have years--about twelve of them--to draw outlines of the shape we want our sculpted brain to take. Some of the parts must be sculpted at critical times. One cannot, after all, carve out toes unless he knows where the foot will go. We need tools to do some of the fine work. The tools are our childhood experiences. And I'm convinced that one of those experiences must be children's books. And they must be experienced within the early years of our long childhood.”

“But lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking; it is the best time for free thinking. Ideas drift like clouds in an undecided breeze, taking first this direction and then that.”

“Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.”

“In some way, every creative action disturbs the universe.”