“Then I’m going?” Kendra asked. The adults in the room exchanged tacit glances before nodding. Then we only have one more problem left to discuss,” Seth said. Everyone turned to him. How do I get invited”

Our young people will learn more about the cult of militarism in this short and accurate book by Joel Andreas than they might learn in their first twelve years of schooling.

A hero sacrifices for the greater good. A hero is true to his or her conscience. In short, heroism means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. Although any person could fit that description, very few do. Choose this day to be one of them.” (Beyonders – A World Without Heroes)

Most pleasures are best as a seasoning, not the main course. p. 374

There are no insect eggs in my food.” Mrs. White reiterated. You should use that in your advertising,” Nate suggested.

Hooves clomping over the whitewashed planks, Doren sprinted along the boardwalk after Rondus, a portly satyr with butterscotch fur and horns that curved away from each other. Puffing hard, Rondus cut through a gazebo and started down the stairs to the field.

For a wound to heal, you have to clean it out. Again, and again, and again. And this cleaning process stings. The cleaning of a wound hurts. Yes. Healing takes so much work.

The Holy Spirit is profoundly committed to restoring the first commandment to first place in our lives.

Running toward danger is foolhardy. … But so is closing your eyes to it. Many perils become less dangerous once you understand their potential hazards.

…even misplaced faith can help us gain knowledge. We try to be smart about where we put our faith and we adjust as we learn more.

Then she imagined Hal giving a rousing eulogy at her funeral explaining how Kendra’s death was a beautiful sacrifice allowing the noble zombies to live on delighting future generations by mindlessly trying to eat them. With her luck it could totally happen.

For each of us destiny is a blend of potential, circumstances, and choices.

We all posses different gifts and abilities. How we use those gifts determines who we are.

You look tired,” Rachel told Jason. “I wish I could jog and sleep at the same time.” “Can’t you?” Ferrin asked, joining them at the little cascade. “I always imagined that you could sleep rolling down a mountainside in a barrel.” “I probably could today,” Jason conceded.

I am so old, I entered engineering school with a slide rule. And I left engineering school with a calculator. I can still use a slide rule but it’s not a skill you especially need anymore.

I don’t know how you’re standing here. Yet you haven’t broken. Not where it matters. Having come this far, I’m not sure you can be broken.

Don’t let the brownies bite.

What has happened to the adult human?

Our relationships, relationships between adults, how all those pieces fit together – that’s the most complicated thing we all face.

I always listen, I ask children, I even ask adults in tennis, “What are your children playing?” And most of the time it’s not tennis. It’s pathetic.

When you’re a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don’t want to know.

Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?

If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.

To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual in spite of it, I had become hardened. Was this what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities? I didn’t like it, but it made it easier to go on.

Small children do not belong at an adult party, and especially should not be used like trained midgets to help serve martinis.