People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis.

There are no people on earth in whom a spirit of enthusiastic zeal is so readily kindled, and burns so remarkably, as Americans

The most interesting people are never perfect.

We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system.

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.