When You Reach Me Time Quotes

Mom has swiped a big paper calendar from work and Scotch-taped the month of April to the kitchen wall. She used a fat green marker, also swiped from work, to draw a pyramid on April 27, with dollar signs and exclamation points all around it. She went out and bought a fancy egg timer that can accurately measure a half minute. They don't have fancy egg timers in the supply closet at her office. (2.1)

I have my own trick. If I'm afraid of someone on the street, I'll turn to him (it's always a boy) and say, "Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" This is my way of saying to the person "I see you as a friend, and there is no need to hurt me or take my stuff. Also, I don't even have a watch and I am probably not worth mugging." (8.2)

"Miranda?" Mom calls from the kitchen. "We need you to keep time. This egg-timer ticking is driving me crazy."

So I watch the second hand of the kitchen clock while Richard feeds Mom clues. Then Mom gives the clues while Richard guesses. (9.1)

"Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" My voice sounded almost normal. That was good.

"Let's see…" He turned his head and looked back toward Broadway like maybe there was a giant clock hovering in the air right behind us. "It's three-sixteen."

I nodded like I could see the invisible clock too. (10.4-6)

"If they land in the broccoli at eight twenty-five, they should be in the broccoli at eight twenty-five. Period."

"That makes no sense," I said. "What if they couldn't do it – save Meg's father and get back in one piece?"

"Then they wouldn't have landed in the broccoli at all. But they did do it, right?"

"Yes, but- the end can't happen before the middle!"

He smiled. "Why can't it?" (14.54-58)

"Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way."

"In the way of what?"

"In the way of what's true." (14.62-64)

"It is weird," Mom said. She put her hands on her hips. "But if you think about it, one thing really can't have anything to do with the other. Someone with the key wouldn't have to ask where the key is. It makes no sense."

She was right, of course. It was backward. But somewhere in my head a tiny bell started ringing. I didn't even notice it at first. (17.5-6)

Christmas Day: Tesser well. This one had something to do with my book. To tesser meant to travel, through space or time or both. It was how Meg got to Camazotz, the planet where her father was held prisoner. But it had nothing to do with Christmas, as far as I knew. (30.15)

"Let's say we're here." She put her fingernail on one diamond chip. "And we figure out a way to jump all the way back to here." She pointed to another one, a few chips away. "It wouldn't matter where we came from. If we're on that chip, we're at that moment. It doesn't matter whether we came from the chip behind it, or ten chips ahead of it. If we're there, we're there. Get it?" (31.36)

"Each moment- each diamond- is like a snapshot."

"A snapshot of what?"

"Of everything, everywhere! There's not time in a picture, right? It's the jumping, from one diamond to the next, that we call time, but like I said, time doesn't really exist. Like that girl just said, a diamond is a moment, and all the diamonds on the ring are happening at the same time. It's like having a drawer full of pictures." (31.41-43)

Common sense is just a name for the way we're used to thinking.

Time travel is possible.

You came to save Sal. And finally- finally!- I understood.

Dick Clark never ages. I thought of what Marcus had said about going to the movies in my time machine, that if I didn't leave until I was sixty-two, the ticket guy wouldn't recognize me. (51.10-12)