Can we really be friends with those who don't love the books that we do? Of course we can, but can we really be friends with those who don't love any books? I'm not so sure of that.

I learned that books could be collected, that they were important enough to keep and that a story that seemed to be over could be part of a bigger one.

That's what reading was for my mother, and became for me - a way to escape, a private time machine, a place that began with moral instruction but soon morphed into empathy and imagination.

I realised that reading was the key that opened the door to secret lands, strange places and the worlds behind other people's eyes.

That's what is so precious in reading this way - you can plumb the depths of another's experience while sitting still with a book in your hands.

One of life's great truths is this: when one is about to be struck by a speeding six-hundred pound Coke machine, one need worry about little else.

If you look at the true essence of the Black Panthers, they were more of a community protection group.

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

Sport fosters many things that are good; teamwork and leadership.

Most of us aren't crazy psychotics, but most of us are a whole bunch of different people. I think when you are in a position of authority, that doesn't remove that from you.

God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.

I see libraries and librarians as frontline soldiers in the war against illiteracy and the lack of imagination.

Do what is right, and you'll have no lasting regrets. Do what is right, and put yourself on the side of truth, goodness, and the best of life.

The show doesn't drive home a lesson, but it can open up people's minds enough for them to see how stupid every kind of prejudice can be.

A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.