Whenever someone makes out a guest list, the people not on it become officially uninvited, and that makes them the enemies of the invited. Guest lists are just a way of choosing sides.

I am convinced that not only do children need children's books to fine-tune their brains, but our civilization needs them if we are not going to unplug ourselves from our collective past.

Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.

Can you know excellence if you've never seen it? Can you know good if you have seen only bad?

Every job in the world has some built-in boredom. No man can stay excited about something every minute he is doing it. Routine is as necessary to life as water is to beer; it is the base that holds the flavors and spices together.

By the time they get to 6th grade honor roll students won't risk making a mistake, and sometimes to be successful, you have to risk making mistakes.

I believe in courtesy. It is the way we avoid hurting people's feelings. She thought that maybe, just maybe, western civilization was in decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o'clock.