“We think that mercy is a sweeter and easier thing than justice, but it is not so; for justice takes us as we are, but mercy assaults us and batters at the gates of our heart, demanding that we be m...”

“The first good news for all of us, the first joyful story of our lives, is that there is a story at all, and an Author who has loved us into being.”

“Many of the greatest books are like a forest. The best way to get to know them is to wander right into the middle and get lost.”

“[Today's high schoolers are required to read] a couple of Shakespeare plays...the couple of Shakespeare plays function as an inoculation that is, you get exposed to 'half-dead Shakespeare virus', ...”

“If we loved children, we would have a few. If we had them, we would want them as children, and would love the wonder with which they behold the world, and would hope some of it might open our eyes ...”

“For the first time in human history, most people are doing things that could never interest a child enough to want to tag along. That says less about the child than about us.”

“They had engaged in what could not be called treatment or even discussion, but open combat, the two of them a microcosm of the great war raging in the far distance: one side that desired autonomy, ...”

“Don't let the rain drive you to the wrong shelter; the shade can turn out to be your protector and also your destroyer, and sometimes the rain is the perfect protector from the rain.”

“The child psychologist's clinic: where imaginary friends go to die, where dreams go to burn, where creativity goes to drown.”

“For self-educated scientists and thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Leonardo-da-Vinci, Michael Faraday, myself and many others, education is a relentless voyage of discovery. To ...”

“There is nothing to be gained by pretending that academic involvement is necessary, or even always desirable, in the quest for truth and knowledge.”

“A young woman forced to keep drunks supplied with beer and siblings with cleanunderwearinstead of being allowed to pursue something higher stores up greatreserves of vitality, a vitality never drea...”

“My advice, as in everything, is to read widely and think for yourself We need more dissent and less dogma.”