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.

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.

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

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

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.

...things happen when you least expect them. Things that can change your whole life.

Ive never had cocaine. I work in showbusiness and no one has ever offered me cocaine. Can you believe that? It makes me worry Im not always the life and soul of the party that I feel like in my head.

Ecology is boring for the same reason that destruction is fun.

I'm sure you're always working in your head, but when you're actually physically working, you're in your studio, right? For me, it changes all the time. That's something I really love.

There is no real reality to a really imagined life any more.

I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.

Habit: Often mistaken for love.

If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing.

In the last few years I've been listening to jazz more than anything else. I listen to a lot of world music and experimental here and there.

In our society, the best predictor of a man's wealth is his wife's looks, and the best predictor of a woman's looks is her husband's wealth.