We all think we're different, but when it comes around, we end up needing the same things. Somebody to love us. Somebody to respect us.

Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?

When I began to read, I began to exist

Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.

We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens.

Reading is not optional.

I'll never live to write all the stories I have in my head.

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

Think about all the tomorrows of your life.

We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it's this wonderful adjunct.

It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken

You will find your purpose revealed in every single action, once you realize that — you — are your purpose.

It is a strange thing to realize... but our failures so often place us where we need to be.

Eminent nutritionists have traded their independence for the food industry's favors.

I think the more removed I feel, the more I warm up to the role of singer.

But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.

I am a perfect being in a perfect world.

Old age is women's hell.

Prayer enters the pool of God's love and widens outward.

Really, it is the Lord who carries the cross, for He knows how to make the soul content with little or no consolation and always to find strength in the words..."Thy will be done."

We had 600 ships, a 600 ship Navy under [Ronald] Reagan. We're down to 200 now [in 2016].