The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading. They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose. They took the glow-worms away and he almost burnt the house down with a tinder.

In fragile and conflict-affected states, education can insulate children from chaos and insecurity and better prepare them to bring about future stability.

American tax dollars spent on education are meant to support students, not support aggressive, deceptive, and misleading marketing campaigns by certain for-profit education companies.

The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.

My chief identity, to my mind, was not 'writer' but 'college dropout.'

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.