Sometimes you need to give people something that's for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it.

Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed an enormous amount of freedom ordinary people are denied.

What I have come to believe is that joy is the twin sister of gratitude. I am most joyful when I am most grateful.

If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird.

I realize, of course, that I wasn't born knowing how to read. I just can't imagine a time when I didn't know how.

We humans have had from time unknown the compulsion to name things and thus to be able to deal with them. The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it. And in ancient thought the name itself has power, so that to know someone's name is to have a certain power over him. And in some societies, as you know, there was a public name and a real or secret name, which would not be revealed to others.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.