...it's okay to grab for something or somebody that's being swept away from you. She'd tell us to hold on tight because we're all meant to be together. We're all meant to need each other.

She'd just remind us that there's more places to be together than this one. (Chapter 3)

...still being rooted enough to things to know when they were going wrong. (Chapter 6)

The only vision I've got is of my poor old May, and seems there's nobody nor nothing can distract me from that. And I ain't even so sure I want to be distracted. I got to keep her with me somehow. [Ob] (Chapter 6)

I was being raised by one person who liked these creatures [bats] and another who tolerated them. I had no reason to fear bats, and as i grew and discovered how many people are deathly afraid of them, it made me wonder about fear. Whether it all just starts with the people who raise us. (Chapter 8

May always said we were angels before we were ever people. She said when we were finished being people we'd go back to being angels. And we'd never feel pain again. (Chapter 11)

It is our spirits which understand love, not our minds, and our spirits, wisely, are never wordy. When you see that quiet owl swoop across your path in the woods at night ... it is your spirit which leaves you mute at the sight ... and which moves you to understand them only with your heart

I have many friends here tonight [and family] - who make my life safe and who make it worth living.

Outside this room, we all have the stars. We have squirrels in the trees and whales sublime in the oceans. We have birds which will leave us in winter and which will return to us in spring. And flower s promising to do the same. We have wet rain, white snow, and always the sky. We have the universe.,br>
-Cynthia Rylant's 1993 Newbery Medal Acceptance speech