Now that I think about it, maybe my own literary exploration of the dark secrets held by families could be traced back to V.C. Andrews.

I was downright obnoxious. In second grade, we had some program where we kept a public list of all the books we read. I think it even included the number of pages. In my nerdy mind, having the longest and most impressive list was somehow going to make up for the fact that I couldn't climb a rope or do a backwards summersault in PE.

I was the weirdest kid: I wanted to see the police file - in grade school! I was convinced I could crack the case if I just had that file.

Letterman, despite whatever idiotic (or worse?) things he may have done with women on his staff, was wise enough to realize that silence isn't permanent and peace of mind can't be bought.

Many seventh graders I know in Illinois, as well as around the Nation, are studying the Constitution. I was pretty impressed with the quality of education our children are receiving because they had not expected me to ask them about it.

I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.

You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract.

It is not right to play politics with education.