Writer Quotes

The secret of the truly successful, I believe, is that they learned very early in life how not to be busy. They saw through that adage, repeated to me so often in childhood, that anything worth doing is worth doing well.

Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

Like many other women, I could not understand why every man who changed a diaper has felt impelled, in recent years, to write a book about it.

Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women's liberation... none was more alarming, from a feminist point of view, than the suggestion that women would eventually become just like men.

Employers have gone away from the idea that an employee is a long-term asset to the company, someone to be nurtured and developed, to a new notion that they are disposable.

Marriage is socialism among two people.

Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent.

At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

You could cover the whole earth with asphalt, but sooner or later green grass would break through.

Knowledge has outstripped character development, and the young today are given an education rather than an upbringing.

I really believe strongly that kids should be spared the runoff of their parents' lives and problems.

I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house.

I met a lot of great people in Saudi Arabia and I'd like to see them again. And I'd love to spend more time in the desert and in the mountains. I felt really at home there.

I had grown up as a fan of Studs Terkel. In Chicago he sort of looms large and is mentioned often.

I grew up north of Chicago, not far from where the Schwinn bicycle plant used to be, and was conscious of the fact that these beautiful, everlasting bikes were made just down the road.

I don't mean to beat a made-in-America drum, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't feel somehow right to be printing books in the U.S.

I can remember exactly where I sat when my teacher first read Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach'.

I am a bike enthusiast; there's a certain amount of romance to bikes. They're both beautiful and utilitarian.

I always like the idea of doing interviews with somebody but completely seriously not ever mentioning what that person is generally known for.

High school teachers who want to get reluctant readers turned around need to give the students some say in the reading list. Make it collaborative: The students will feel ownership, and everyone will dig in.

Having lost people when they were young, you feel intimately acquainted with mortality, I guess. Though I procrastinate worse than anybody.

Every time I get through the work on a book of nonfiction, I say I'll never do it again; it takes so much out of you.

But you know, there's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one-on-one, getting all this attention - they go home, they're finished. They don't stall, they don't do their homework in front of the TV.

But while mum and dad were incredibly caring, it was also a very chaotic household where everyone fought about everything. So I know what it's like to internalize all that chaos.

But there was something psychological happening there that was just a little bit different. And the other thing was, there was no stigma. Kids weren't going into the 'Center-for-Kids-That-Need-More-Help' or something like that. It was 826 Valencia.

But Saudi Arabia is surprising in a lot of ways. Like any place, or any people, it relentlessly defies easy categorization.

But I'm thinking about 12 things at once, a hundred thousand times a day. Most people do, I would imagine.

Because I grew up with this naive expectation of people doing right, I get shocked by every little violation.

And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students.