Quotes from E.L. Konigsburg

The storm in our private lives had picked him up and put him out of place. Me, too. I, too, had been picked up from one place and set down in another. I, too, had been stranded. We both needed help resettling.

If you really want to be a witch, nothing you have to do will seem like too much. If you don't really want to be a witch, everything will seem like too much.

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

The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.

Always use good grammar. It's like wearing designer clothing. People may not like your style, but they will pay attention to the cut of your cloth.

I have such faith in words that when I read about such families as a child, I thought that they were the norm and that the way I lived was subnormal, waiting for normal.

Julian Singh," he said, extending his hand. No one (a) introduces himself and then (b) extends his hand to be shaken while (c) wearing shorts and (d) knee socks and (e) holding a genuine leather book bag on (f) the first day of school.

Jennifer, I asked, what do you ever do besides read? She looked up at the sky and sighed and said very seriously, I think.

Let me first talk about our brains as a personal radio telescope. Let me talk first about its wonderful built-in wiring for tuning out the static of our civilization in order to better tune in its symphony.

She was bored with simply being straight-A's Claudia Kincaid. She was tired of arguing about whose turn it was to choose the Sunday night seven-thirty television show, of injustice, and of the monotony of everything.

Good explanations are like bathing suits, darling; they are meant to reveal everything by covering only what is necessary.

I chose a brunette, a redhead, a blond, and a kid with hair as black as print on paper.

When the sun came through the [stained-glass] windows, I felt that I was standing inside of God's kaleidoscope.

Nouilles et fromage en casserole," Parks answered. Claudia showed interest. "I'll have some, please. Sounds like something special." Parks served. Claudia looked down at her plate, looked up at me and moaned, "Why, it's nothing but macaroni and cheese.

Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.

The girl clones at Singer Grove were just like the ones in Texas; they knocked themselves out to be like everyone else and then bragged about how they were different. All their differences put into a pot and boiled down wouldn't spice baby food. By trying to brag about how different they were, they just really showed how alike they were, because all their differences were alike.

You must thing of those six steps not as preparation for the beginning but as the beginning itself p10

one of the finest private collections of art in the Western Hemisphere. Others considered it a gigantic hodgepodge of

The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home." ? E. L. Konigsburg, From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. To a large place, a comfortable place, an indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place. And that's why she decided upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

For the novelist or poet, for the scientist or artist, the question is not where do ideas come from, the question is how they come. The how is the mystery. The how is fragile.

D)on't seek great reviews from small minds. They have neither the character nor the vocabulary for them.

I never really look past my eyes. That way I always feel pretty. Windows of the soul, you know.

And he thought about the edge between the ninety percent and the ten percent. Sometimes that edge was cunning, and sometimes it was kind. Sometimes it was shabby. And sometimes it was heroic. But it was always mysterious. Definitely.