“Once a kid learns a library is hers, to use as she wants, the world opens up., I’ve seen it happen. It happened to me.”

We understand ourselves through stories, by making stories out of our lives. Storytellers give people structure with which they can begin to look at their own lives and try to make sense of them.

In the library I discovered that you could learn by following your nose. And I learned that a book was as close to a living thing as you could get without being one.

Every child needs a safe place to fall – a place where he or she can explore things without worrying about failure and judgment.

I was in NYC during 9/11; it happened on a Tuesday, I was on stage Thursday. It was a small crowd, but it took about 10 days and comedy clubs were packed.

Thank God for the gays. I don’t know what would have happened but I know what did happen. Good for them and good for me.

There was a folk club there and a girl called Jill Doyle taught me the guitar, who happened to be Davey Graham’s sister. Davey Graham is one of my heroes and always has been.

Everyone across America is tightening their belts. The only place it hasn’t happened is D.C.

“I don’t know if I’ve got the will to even do this.” It’s the type of game that doesn’t let you walk away so that’s what happened, I just kept coming back to it until something really happened for me.

She shrieked. “nora! What happened to the banister!” good thing she hadn’t seen her bedroom yet.

I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”

Rather than engage in the sort of selective retention that so many investors tend to do and pretend mistakes never happened, I prefer to own them. This allows me to learn from them and, with any luck, avoid making the same errors again.