"Somehow all of us knew that Auntie behaved as she did because she had got way beyond being grown-up. She had grown up and up and up until she got to the very top, as high as you could go. Then she started down, and having been on the downhill side of growing for such a long time, she got right back to where we were, but with an imagination more fecund and startling than any we had ever encountered."

No matter how many times I read this book, I get chills. So real. Absolutely brilliant writing.

"I felt completely there for it; but the feeling of the inside of her ran up spreading through me like swallowing hot soup upside down."

"Anyway, as he pointed out with some truth, nothing short of taking Ma out and shooting her - a course he frequently recommended - could greatly improve the household cookery."

Franklin's best yet.

"She moved like a snake if a snake had feet"

"She was thinking about people who came in through the door at a normal size but started growing then, becoming huge, giants, and as she passed through that image into sleep her body felt heavy, massive, so much so that she was unable to move, and sleep overcame her and moved through her like death."

"A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house."

"Dreaming up a railroad to Key West is the stuff of another era, and its undertaking is the work of another kind of man."

"[...]Nearly Normal spent the morning vomiting self-portraits and farting looney tunes[...]"

Was given this book by a friend who insisted I read Tom Robbins. He said he was embarrassed for me that I have not read any of his work yet.

"This world was never made for him. He'd outlived it before he could walk."

Greatest book in American Literature. Maybe the greatest ever written.

It was fantastic. I wrote it. I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.