I studied law at Warwick University, then philosophy at Oxford. I met my wife Leah there. She is American, so I followed her to New York.

I did a law degree but was miserable the whole time. I was supposed to join a law firm in London but instead went to Oxford to do a master's in philosophy.

People in the North are really taciturn and reticent, and they don't really like to talk about the past.

Sometimes the fantasy writers set their novels in an ancient Earth, sometimes a parallel Earth, or, quite often, they offered no explanation at all as to the temporal and geographic location.

Sandy Koufax is a great teacher. He just talks about competitiveness and being aggressive - about stride length, power, how to spin the breaking ball. The way he explains pitching is simple, which is something you don't see a lot.

School systems now routinely have more administrators than classroom teachers. They have armies of counselors and therapists and nutritionists and 'multi-cultural learning facilitators.'

Being a mother has been my greatest teacher and also the most self-sacrificing thing I've ever done.

My grandmother lived to be 100 years old. Her grandmother was a slave, yet she was a college graduate in the Spellman class of 1917. She taught art for 50 years and she saved her Social Security checks for her children's education.