" He spent so many years in first grade, they named the desk for him.

I felt the town tighten around my throat. "But as the saying goes, if you can't get justice, Mrs. Dowdel remarked, get even."

Asked for a final word on the subject, Mrs. Dowdel said: "Keep off my property. You know who you are. The next ghost you see could be you."

I haven't missed a funeral since the great flu epidemic. A good funeral makes the whole week go better. ( said by old lady in 1958 )

Fiction isn't what "was". It's "what if". And a novelist is one who believes that real life can always be improved upon. "

― Richard Peck , A Season of Gifts (A Long Way from Chicago, #3)