Many of the greatest books are like a forest. “The best way to get to know them is to wander right into the middle and get lost.

For those of you who may be homeschooled: high school is that four-year asylum where they put teenagers because we have no idea what else to do with them.

The first good news for all of us, the first joyful story of our lives, is that there is a story at all, and an Author who has loved us into being.

For the first time in human history, most people are doing things that could never interest a child enough to want to tag along. That says less about the child than about us.

We would – or at least we should – take upon ourselves the ultimate task of our poet: to seek the face of God.

Fairy tales and folk tales are for children and childlike people, not because they are little and inconsequential, but because they are as enormous as life itself.

Social pressure is the fascism of the democracies. Fascism is the democracy of the ruthless. Social engineering is the opiate of romantic intellectuals.

worksheets - the archenemy of abundant, purposeful reading (and discussion and writing).

Being alone is much better than being around negative people out of loneliness or desperation.

I'm always shy in front of an audience, so I'm always at the back, in the shadows, just doing it. I don't like the front, the adulation.

For me, what I see happening in this [clean water] crisis is deterioration of the family. It is deterioration of our health.

Diets show to what great lengths women will go so as not to go to great widths.

You can have all the talent in the world, but if the pumper's not there, it doesn't matter.

People who leave their own time out of their work cannot be surprised if their time fails to find them interesting.

Who wanna be next? While you a dead superstar, the record company still cashin' checks.

There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.