“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.”

“For those of you who may be homeschooled: high school is that four-year asylum where they put teenagers because we have no idea what else to do with them.”

“[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 ...”

“Why wont you help me?You have to able to manage on your own.”

“Education is the greatest manifestation of the innate potential of human mind.”

“Ignorance is a sickness every person should avoid.. as once you are infected by it.. it becomes a morbid rotation that sometimes can be hard to escape from.”

“One night I begged Robin, a scientist by training, to watch Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' with me on PBS. He lasted about one act, then turned to me in horror: 'This is how you spend your d...”

“The liberal arts do not conduct the soul all the way to virtue, but merely set it going in that direction.”