If you don't read, I don't know how to communicate with you...I can never express who I am in my own words as powerfully as my books can.

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.

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.

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.

There are moments when a rope's end, a pole, the branch of the tree, is life itself, and it is a frightful thing to see a living being lose his hold upon it, and fall like a ripe fruit.

I will honor my ancestors in StarClan, but not those who have ever walked in the Dark Forest. Guide my steps wisely, warriors of the past. And warriors of now.

Many become brave when brought to bay.

In my song you catch at times Note sweeter far than mine, And in the tangle of my rhymes Can scent the eglantine.

Public Schools too often fail because they are shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every other human enterprise - competition.

...religion is a tool to bind people together, to strengthen their unity, but like every tool, it can be mismanaged, even used in opposition to the way it should.

God is not just saving individuals and preparing them for heaven; rather, He is creating a people among whom He can live and who in their life together will reproduce God’s life and character.

We never did just one take. Multiple takes. Many. I did a bunch. Sometimes I do one take. Sometimes I did 20.

My kids are growing up and it's hard to accept they are their own person and they're independent.

70 percent of what we do involves staring into space trying to figure out what the hell happens next.