Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

Schools provide safe spaces to talk about controversial issues, and literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictoriness.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Terrence, the Roman slave who freed himself with his writings, once observed, "I am a human being. Nothing human is alien to me." That could be the motto of literature!

The elasticity of imagination and compassion is what writing and reading promote.

Reading and thoughtfulness and openness are the best way, I should think, to begin to address the richness that is in each of us.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.