The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers

I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

I can only think that the book is read because it deals with the difficulties of schooling, which do not change. Please note: the difficulties, not the problems. Problems are solved or disappear with the revolving times. Difficulities remain. It will always be difficult to teach well, to learn accurately; to read, write, and count readily and competently; to acquire a sense of history and start one's education or anothers.

Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings.

Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made.

The reason why research is like sculpting from memory is that in neither is there a concrete visible subject to copy directly. The subject - as sculptors themselves are fond of saying - is hidden in the block of material.

Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti.