When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading.

The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.

If you are not a writer, you will not understand the difficulties of writing. If you are not a writer, you will not know the fears and hopes of the writers you teach.

Books don't harm kids; they arm them.

You're not lonely when you're teaching, you're not quiet, you're laughing most of the time, you're having a wonderful time interacting with young people. It's the best fun in the world.

I realized with grief that purposeless activities in language arts are probably the burial grounds of language development and that coffins can be found in most classrooms, including mine.

Babies have much higher levels of stress in childcare.

As everyone knows, nothing is sweeter than tiny baby fingers and chubby baby toes.

I don't go to church much anymore, but Methodist values still wind me up and send me ticking into my daily life.

Writing a picture book is like writing 'War and Peace' in Haiku.

Are you living your dreams?

The tragedy of this life is not failure, but low aim.

Hold tenderly that which you cherish, for it is precious and a tight grip may crush it. Do not let the fear of dropping it cause you to hold it too tightly: the chances are, it's holding you, too.

As I thought about that, I had to wonder: What will we know better about tomorrow? Who cares? Hindsight is useless.

Says he foun' he jus' got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain't no good, 'cause his little piece of a soul wasn't no good 'less it was with the rest, an' was whole.

I'm born to do music. I'm born to act. I'm born to dance and all of these things, and I will be respected.

The minute a phrase, becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence.

God has to let you be there, and then you just have to have good fortune for whatever reason. I'm enjoying every moment of my life. We are so fortunate just to be alive.

Y'ALL ARE JUST BITTER.

Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.