The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a new word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned.

Our attitude towards ourselves should be 'to be satiable in learning' and towards others 'to be tireless in teaching.

The rest, with very little exaggeration, was books. Meant-to-be-picked-up books. Permanently-left-behind books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with books. But books, books. Tall cases lined three walls of the room, filled to and beyond capacity. The overflow had been piled in stacks on the floor. There was little space left for walking, and none whatever for pacing.

Adult helplessness destroys children. Or it forces them to become tiny adults of their own.

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.