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

I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love.

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book.

I think that a good education ought to be in part the idea that ease and joy are not synonymous. Some of the most fulfilling pleasures of life are to be found in work - found in work you love to do, work you want to do, work that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.

There is a human longing to go back to other times. We all know how when we were children we asked our parents, "What was it like when you were a kid?" I think it probably has something to do with our survival as a species.

I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.