The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to declared that all of them should do it.

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.

That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.

I've gotta keep life and computers separate, or else I'm gonna go mad.

I always want to write something better than the last book.

If you had an essentially happy childhood, that tends to dwell with you.

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.