There is something about that moment, when literature becomes accessible, and a door of the world opens.

-a whole world can lie before someone, if love is there when one wakes.

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.

It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere.

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.

The writer after all is only half the book, the other half is the reader.

Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world.

We live in times that are in many ways ambiguous. Maybe that's why kids want precision in what they read - they don't like that moral ambiguity.

Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none

He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.

No, there was nothing unusual in any of these dreams as dreams. They were merely displaced in Time.

Do something new and expect new result.

We are Americans when we go to war, and when we return, we are Mexicans.

With all this consumer debt, business debt, government debt, smaller movements in interest rates have a magnified effect. a small movement can tip the boat.

I just love thinking about what makes people tick

As far as when I'm writing a song, I think I'm writing first and foremost for myself.

He was never without misery, and never without hope.

See that you do not use the trick of prayer to cover up what you know you ought to do.

Our politicians, they all seemed like game show hosts to me.

I can remember that little thrill - that little shiver of excitement - when the Opry audience would encore a person because that person had touched them so.