Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.

There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build.

It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not.

The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.

When you do something young enough and you train for it, it just becomes a part of you.

Give yourself permission to dream. Fuel your kids' dreams too. Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.

One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.