I realized with grief that purposeless activities in language arts are probably the burial grounds of language development and that coffins can be found in most classrooms, including mine.

When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading.

The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.

If you are not a writer, you will not understand the difficulties of writing. If you are not a writer, you will not know the fears and hopes of the writers you teach.

Books don't harm kids; they arm them.

You're not lonely when you're teaching, you're not quiet, you're laughing most of the time, you're having a wonderful time interacting with young people. It's the best fun in the world.

Babies have much higher levels of stress in childcare.

As everyone knows, nothing is sweeter than tiny baby fingers and chubby baby toes.

I don't go to church much anymore, but Methodist values still wind me up and send me ticking into my daily life.

Writing a picture book is like writing 'War and Peace' in Haiku.

Gender is like a Rubik’s Cube with one hundred squares per side, and every time you twist it to take a look at another angle, you make it that much harder a puzzle to solve.

When your dream doesn't let you sleep even after 22 hours of waking up, it's worth chasing.

I definitely don't feel a sense of jealousy or competition, and that's a really good feeling.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew the woman I wanted to become.

James Cameron has always been way ahead of the curve in terms of the use of technology in his movies.

A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavor to do, he drowns.

I don't think God cares if you are rich or poor. God loves you anyway. But if you want to be rich, then choose your church & preacher carefully.

Wisconsin is very proud of the career and technical college system that we have back home.

I'm very much afraid of being mad - that's my one fear.

It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblences to merit.