Interest is a terrible thing to waste.

Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.

Learning happens when someone wants to learn, not when someone wants to teach.

In the end all we have...are stories and methods of finding and using those stories.

Schools in the future will be judged less because of the credentials that they bestow, and more because of the experiences that they offer.

Learning is about failure and recovery from failure.

Everything they teach in school is oriented so that they can test it to show that you know it, instead of taking note of the obvious, which is that people learn by doing what people want to do.

Education in a deepest sense has always been about doing rather than about knowing.

An uneasy past often builds the strongest and finest people.

All sins cast long shadows.

I think of myself as a fairly attractive girl and always have, thanks to my mom. I was brought into this world thinking I was gorgeous because my mother was extremely devoted to this notion.

I think that I am profoundly influenced by writers who have explored loss, and longing, and fear. Those influences have turned me into a thriller writer, essentially.

There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.

A people who mean to be free must be prepared to meet danger in person, and not rely upon the fallacious protection of armies

I've spent my life being embarrassed.

Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder - and turn quickly to my typewriter.

As an African-American parent, we have to really, really worry about our children and how our children are perceived in America.

Its not easy for Chinese actors to do foreign films, and its not easy for foreign actors to do Chinese films.