Our children shouldn't have to wait for adulthood to become wild readers. For many, it will be too late.

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.

Tiddlywinks, tiddlywinks, I want to play tiddlywinks, " chanted Ramona, shaking her head back and forth.

Most people do not take care of their lives, because they don’t value life.

I hate cameras. They interfere, they're always in the way. I wish: if I could work with my eyes alone.

Intimacy is a wonderful thing. It's frustrating that growing up I thought it was wrong. It isn't. Exploring your sexuality is important when you're growing up.

The man whom nature's self had made to mock herself, and truth to imitate.

I just feel such a connection to the little kids in Naples. I remember being on the street wanting a small piece of candy.

It doesn't help to wait until something happens and then prosecute the offenders, especially if it's the idea of the offender to extinguish himself in the commission of the crime.

I always just want to do non-typical voices for some reason.

She was singed, bleeding, bruised, and furiously alive.

Fear is the most subtle and destructive of all human diseases.