Once your baby tree is in the ground, check it daily, because the first three years are critical. Remember that you are your tree's only friend in a hostile world.

I have accepted that I don't know all the things that I ought to know, but I do know things that I need to know.

My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, and that every paragraph merits exertion, and in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books.

People don't know to make a leaf, but they know how to destroy one.

Love and learning are similar in that they can never be wasted.

I wonder who else in the world was having such an exquisite dawn.

Being paid to wonder seems like a heavy responsibility at times.

I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and knows that love is as strong as death, and be on my side forever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me.

I care about education for everyone, not just the elite.

A well arranged scrapbook, filled with choice selections, is a most excellent companion for anyone who has the least literary taste.

I hate the man who eats without knowing what he’s eating. I doubt his taste in more important things.

People want to psychoanalyze me, but the fact is, I'm not that complicated. I'm pretty straightforward. And I'm not all that self-reflective, because I tend to be a doer.

The new definition of a heathen is a man who has never played baseball.

The greatest weapon in the world ... is ridicule.

As you get older, you kind of take on things and become kind of different than what you used to be as a kid, obviously.

It is attachment to desire, not desire itself, that is the underlying cause of practically all of our pain and suffering.

Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want.