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 tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

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

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.

I do believe that enduring geological features are important, though I don't think I can be clear about exactly why.

I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression