“The good thing about being a pessimist is that I'm either always right, or pleasantly surprised.”

“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”

“We are not optimists because we can predict a bright and beautiful future, but we're not pessimists either, because the future is unknown and unknowable. We are, rather, active participants in possibility, willing workers in the fields of what could be, but is not yet. We are compelled by love- love of children and youth, love of a world in need of repair- and powered by hope. ”

“You know more about your child than I can ever hope to know, what advice can you give me to make a better teacher for her?”

“I guess even when you can see everything, some things will always be a surprise.”

“You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn't make a mockery of your values.”

“I breathed the air of deliverance through books, and through books I leapt over the walls of confinement..”