When You Reach Me Family Quotes

Mom calls Richard Mr. Perfect because of how he looks and how he knows everything. And every time she calls him Mr. Perfect, Richard taps his right knee. He does that because his right leg is shorter than his left one. All his right-foot shoes have two-inch platforms nailed to the bottom so that his legs match. In bare feet, he limps a little. (2.6)

Mom wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer – she started law school and almost finished her first year, but then I was born and she had to quit. Now she's a paralegal, except she works at a really small law office where she has to be the receptionist and the secretary too. Richard is one of the lawyers. They do a lot of free work for poor people, sometimes even for criminals. (3.25)

Upstairs, she threw her coat on a kitchen chair, filled the spaghetti pot with water, and put it on to boil. She was wearing an orange turtleneck and a denim skirt with purple and black striped tights.

"Nice tights," I snorted. Or I tried to snort, anyway. I'm not exactly sure how, though people in books are always doing it.

She leaned against the sink and flipped through the mail. "You already hassled me about the rights this morning, Mira." (3.30-32)

In my book, Meg is looking for her father. When she finally gets to Camazotz, which is a planet somewhere near the Big Dipper where he's being held prisoner, this evil man with red eyes asks her why she wants him, and she says, "Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father."

So I figure it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had. (9.5-6)

"But first you have to learn the V-cut," he told us. "Very important." Except he said "Velly important," and stretched his eyelids back with two fingers, and bowed down low – it was the classic fake-Chinese act. I had never seen a grown-up do it before. If Mom had been there, she would have whacked him on the head with a plastic tray. (18.2)

Her bringing the chips and cookies is supposed to help somehow. It's not really the cookies, she says. It's the fact that someone brings them. (26.16)

"You need the jacket with the hood," Mom rasped from her bed. Her voice never sounded normal until after coffee. "Look in the front closet." She seemed to think that it was really helpful to lie in bed, listening to the radio and calling out weather reports. I couldn't help thinking about how, in my book, Meg's mother had French toast waiting for Meg in the morning. She was a single mom too, with Meg's dad being held prisoner halfway across the universe. (30.2)

"Richard wants to move in," she said flatly. "He wants us to get married."

And my brain said, "He does?" Then I got this feeling of…lightness. I was happy. "That's great," I told Mom.

"You think so?" She smiled for a second, and then her mouth dropped. "I don't know. I just can't…I can't figure out if it's the right thing."

"Don't you love him?"

"Of course I do! I don't know if it's the right thing for you, I mean."

"Is that why you won't give him a key? Because of me?" (34.24-29)

"Your mom is so cool," she said later, when we were in our beds and her face was resting on Mom's pillow. "I like her a lot. She's like a real person, you know? And she treats you like a real person too. My dad still acts like a baby." (35.29)

"So she goes back there, to Camazotz, and her brother is totally under Its control, and he's saying all these awful things to her. And IT is trying to suck her in too, to take over her brain. She's trying to resist, but it's hard. And then, at the last second, she figures out that there's only one thing that can defeat IT: love. IT doesn't understand love."

"Ooh," Belle said. "That's deep." (43.12-13)

"Where's your mother?" I whispered to Julia.

"She's meditating," Julia said.

"Here?"

"Yes—in the …closet. And she absolutely cannot be disturbed." (44.6-9)

I gave Richard his present. He admires his frog and puts it on the table next to Mom's frog so that their little frog feet are touching. He opens the box. Inside are two keys, one for the lobby door and one for the apartment. I made a key ring for them – it's a sailor's knot, two strands, pulled tight. He knows how to untie it, of course, but I don't think he will. (52.19)