Teaching vocabulary lists is inefficient - the time is better spent reading alone.

People acquiring a second language have the best chance for success through reading.

Free voluntary reading results in better reading comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, spelling, and grammatical development

If children read 1 million words in a year, atl least 1,000 words will be added to their vocabulary.

Hearing stories has a direct impact on literacy development.

Light reading is not to be avoided but should be used as a conduit to more serious reading.

Those who read in a second language write and spell better in that language.

Without a reading habit, children simply do not have a chance.

Access to a school library results in more reading.

Learning to read in one language helps us read a second language.

Children read more when they see other people reading.

Until I was left with nothing but life and books, I realised these two gracious gifts, where enough for me to exist.

The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

A smile opened, thin as a paper cut, in the bottom of Flowers's face.

Time to a writer is like play dough in the hands of a toddler.

I know how to be sour. I know that taste.

I chose a pseudonym, Chris Marker, pronounceable in most languages, because I was very intent on traveling.

There is nothing so costly as ignorance.

I'm pretty good at indulging myself. I'm about to go travel for a week. I like to get massaged, go into steam rooms. I take care of myself.

We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?

Let's face it, most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are-- and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart.