Failure is not an option, so why talk about it?

I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.

I try to teach my students that books are a mirror, reflecting their own lives, and a window, giving them a peek into someone else's.

Readers enjoy talking about books almost as much as they like reading.

Books are love letters (or apologies) passed between us, adding a layer of conversation beyond our spoken words.

Although I enjoy digging through the library to help students find books, my aim is to help them develop self-confidence in choosing books for themselves.

Students need to make their own choices about reading material and writing topics.

The purpose of schools should not be to prepare students for more school. We should be seeking to have fully engaged students now

A classroom atmosphere that promotes reading does not come from the furniture and its placement as much as it comes from the teacher's expectation that students will read.

If we value all readers, we must value all reading.

When we meet and I discover that we have read and loved the same books, we are instant friends.

But now it was spring again, and spring was almost unbearable for sensitive hearts. It drove creation to its utmost limits, it wafted its spice-laden breath even into the nostrils of the innocent.

Character roles definitely age better than your ingenues. You don't get to keep doing that.

Documentaries are unpredictable. You never know what will turn up, and the drama occurs in real time. But if you listen to people, a narrative always emerges.

I think I have just always had an awareness that when you go to a premiere and people start cheering and shouting your name and stuff, they are shouting at a perception of you that they have.

Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all

A burden in the bush is worth two on your hands.

You don't need sunglasses inside a building in the middle of the night.

as I became Speaker in 1986, I made a point of setting up a public information office to respond to requests and provide information about Parliament and how it functions.

Winning provides happiness. Losing provides wisdom.

Hoc solum deliqui, quod uiuo. My only fault is that I am alive.