E.L. Konigsburg Quotes

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

Before you can be anything, you have to be yourself. That's the hardest thing to find.

Whenever someone makes out a guest list, the people not on it become officially uninvited, and that makes them the enemies of the invited. Guest lists are just a way of choosing sides.

Because way down deep they know that civilized people have to preserve rare birds.

I am convinced that not only do children need children's books to fine-tune their brains, but our civilization needs them if we are not going to unplug ourselves from our collective past.

I'm not sure that love and like aren't like cats and dogs: One can't grow up to be the other, but they can be taught to live under the same roof.

Indecisiveness wears a person out.

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

Ninety percent of who you are is invisible." - Mrs. Zender

By the time they get to 6th grade honor roll students won't risk making a mistake, and sometimes to be successful, you have to risk making mistakes.

Silence does for thinking what a suspension bridge does for space -- it makes connections.

Jamie, you know, you could go clear around the world and still come home wondering if the tuna fish sandwiches at Chock Full O'Nuts still cost thirty-five cents.

How can you know what is missing if you’ve never met it? You must know of something’s existence before you can notice its absence.

Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.

When you hug someone, you learn something else about them. An important something else.

Talk was like the vitamins of our friendship: Large daily doses kept it healthy.

Secrets are the kind of adventure she needs. Secrets are safe, and they do much to make you different. On the inside where it counts.

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

I don't think there is any feeling I like more than the one that someone is glad to see me. —Connor Kane

True simplicity is elegant.

There were times in school when a person had to do things fast, cheap, and without character.

A nasty letter or a sarcastic one can make you righteously angry, but what can you do about a polite letter of rejection? Nothing, really, except cry.

Sometimes silence is a habit that hurts?

Every now and then, a person must do something simply because he wants to, because it seems to him worth doing. And that does not make it worthless or a waste of time.

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?

Can you know excellence if you've never seen it? Can you know good if you have seen only bad?

Because after a time having a secret and nobody knowing you have a secret us no fun. And although you dont want others to know what the secret is, you want them to at least know you have one.

...just because I don't have on a silly black costume and carry a silly broom and wear a silly black hat, doesn't mean that I'm not a witch. I'm a witch all the time and not just on Halloween.

Going to school- picking an apple Getting an education- eating it

There's something nice and safe about having money.

Biding one's time is a very different thing from patience.

Never have a long conversation with anyone who says "between you and I.

They are saying that if life has a structure, a staff, a sensible scaffold, we hang our nonsense on it. And they are saying that broken parts add color and music to the staff of life.

Five minutes of planning are worth fifteen minutes of just looking.

Sometimes we even have to risk making fools of ourselves.

The eyes are the windows of the soul.... If someone was to look into your eyes, what would you want them to see?

It often takes more courage to be a passenger than a driver.

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

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

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

In some way, every creative action disturbs the universe.

Because after a time having a secret and nobody knowing you have a secret is no fun. And although you don't want others to know what the secret is, you want them to at least know you have one.

I want all the books on the she

Sometimes it takes more courage to be the passenger than to be the driver.

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