Take a farewell look at the waves and sky. Take a farewell sniff of the salty sea. A little bit sad about the place you are leaving, a little bit gla… - Robert McCloskey

People — adults as well as children — so often just don’t realize what they’re looking at. There’s no thought behind it. They’ll say to themselves, ‘Well, that’s a bookshelf’ or ‘That’s an elephant,’ and see nothing other than just the fact. There’s no sense of relationship — or the relationship of a house to its environment, a man to his environment, of the scale of things. … Seeing is really a decision-making process, a matter of evaluating what is around you

By the time Uncle Ulysses and the sheriff arrived and pushed through the crowd, the lunchroom was a calamity of doughnuts! Doughnuts in the window, doughnuts piled high on the shelves, doughnuts stacked on plates, doughnuts lined up twelve deep all along the counter, and doughnuts still rolling down the little chute, just as regular as a clock can tick.

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” — Robert McCloskey