“To me, nothing can be more important than giving children books, It's better to be giving books to children than drug treatment to them when they're 15 years old. Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn't have to put them in prisons?”

“It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears.”

“Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications. ”

“When Toni Morrison said 'write the book you want to read,' she didn't mean everybody.”

“This is not my favorite way to wake up. My favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature I had better ring for breakfast. This occurs rather less often than one might wish.”

“All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable.”

“The girl in your class who suggests that this year the Drama Club put on The Bald Soprano will be a thorn in people's sides all of her life.”