"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around."
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler)

"Ninety percent of who you are is invisible." - Mrs. Zender"
— E.L. Konigsburg (The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World)

"Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you."
— E.L. Konigsburg

"Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere."
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler)

"There were times in school when a person had to do things fast, cheap, and without character."
— E.L. Konigsburg

"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.""
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler)

"Going to school- picking an apple
Getting an education- eating it"
— E.L. Konigsburg (Up From Jericho Tel)

"Talk was like the vitamins of our friendship: Large daily doses kept it healthy."
— E.L. Konigsburg (Silent to the Bone)

"I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It's hollow."
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler)

"Never have a long conversation with anyone who says "between you and I.""
— E.L. Konigsburg (Up From Jericho Tel)

"I waited for her to catch up, and when I did, she slowed down, and I missed seeing the light in her hair. I never told Nadia how much I liked seeing the halo the sunlight made of her hair. Sometimes silence is a habit that hurts."
— E.L. Konigsburg (The View from Saturday)

"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. "
— E.L. Konigsburg (The View from Saturday)

"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. "
— E.L. Konigsburg (The View from Saturday)

""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?""
— E.L. Konigsburg

"But happiness is not always loud and bright and crowded. Happiness ripens like a watermelon, sweet and rosy on the inside with only a thin top layer altogether free of small black pits. And, like a watermelon, the whole thing can be covered with a plain dark rind."
— E.L. Konigsburg

"The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home."
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler)

""What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn't mean the end of their arguments. But it did mean that the arguments became a part of the adventure, became discussions not threats. To an outsider the arguments would appear to be the same because feeling like part of a team is something that happens invisibly. You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time-- especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other.""
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler)

"The way I see it, the difference between farmers and suburbanites is the difference in the way we feel about dirt. To them, the earth is something to be respected and preserved, but dirt gets no respect. A farmer likes dirt. Suburbanites like to get rid of it. Dirt is the working layer of earth, and dealing with dirt is as much a part of farm life as dealing with manure. Neither is user-friendly but both are necessary."
— E.L. Konigsburg (The View from Saturday)

"They called themselves The Souls. They told Ms. Olinski that they were The Souls before they were a team, but she told them that they were a team as soon as they became The Souls. Then after a while, teacher and team agreed that they were arguing chicken-or-egg. Whichever way it began--chicken-or-egg, team-or-The Souls--it definitely ended with an egg. Definitely, an egg."
— E.L. Konigsburg (The View from Saturday)

"Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. "
— E.L. Konigsburg

""Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around." "
— E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler)

"The called themselves The Souls. They told Ms. Olinski that they were The Souls before they were a team, but she told them that they were a team as soon as they became The Souls. Then after a while, teacher and team agreed that they were arguing chicken-or-egg. Whichever way it began--chicken-or-egg, team-or-The Souls--it definitely ended with an egg. Definitely, an egg."
— E.L. Konigsburg