The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too they would never forget.

Nothing ever invented can you a bigger life than a book.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

If everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.

Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.

On Christmas morning when I was a child, my mother would leave a book wrapped at the foot of the bed, which was a hint that Santa had come. It was also her way of keeping us in bed a little longer before we went downstairs. So I've always associated books with happiness and gifts. And they are. I can't get enough of them.

Home is really where education does begin.