Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.

When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life

among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time

Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.