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Really, each era has its own false nostalgia. We all put a picket fence up around something. For my generation it was the '50s, and for other generations it will be something else. Change is scary for everyone, as is complexity, contradiction, and an uncertain future.
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There are some places … that the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some places where the road keeps going.
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'Harry Potter' created a generation of readers in an era when kids could have disappeared into the depths of the Internet. That's no small feat. Every book series owes J.K. Rowling a debt of gratitude.
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Most modern science fiction went to school on 'Dune.' Even 'Harry Potter' with its 'boy protagonist who has not yet grown into his destiny' shares a common theme. When I read it for the first time, I felt like I had learned another language, mastered a new culture, adopted a new religion.
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This movie is about the fact that personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression.… That when we're afraid of certain things in ourselves or we're afraid of change, we project those fears on to other things, and a lot of very ugly social situations can develop.
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You have to listen to the movie while you're making it. I think that's important.
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History is full of examples of people who clamp down after they began to enjoy too much freedom. Freedom can lead to instability, anarchy, and confusion. So there can be a moral counter-revolution.
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As time goes by the memories of sitting on the edge of a bed and reading aloud with your kid are going to be very meaningful in your own mental scrapbook.
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We repress the things we're scared of, but if we just look at and embrace the things we're scared of, it's a much fuller, richer life that's also not as scary.
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There are certain things you should expect from a President. I ought to care more about you than I do about me... I ought to care more about what's right than I do about what's popular. I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in.
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The dynamic range of a digital camera is not that much greater than film, particularly if you push the ASA a little bit.
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There are not many people on Team Gary. Actually, it's two people. My kids.
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There's something so wonderful about writing in rhyme where it isn't just the meaning of the words, it's the music to the words and the shape and the sound.
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There's nothing I'd rather do than sort of, you know, sit at my computer and rhyme.
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Ultimately, so much Dr. Seuss is about empowerment. He invites us to disappear into our imagination and then blows the doors off what that can mean.
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Why is every great children's story about a journey? Maybe that's because we are always on one.
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You can't tell your kids to read if you're just watching television. They have to see you read. And in that respect, I think it's important to walk the walk. It's a wonderful shared time.
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The great seats of power tend to be wide and open, not vertical and soaring. Red Square, Tiananmen Square, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin - all massive but with large open spaces that project an image of might.
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You know, everyone thinks we got this broken down horse and fixed him, but we didn't. He fixed us. Every one of us. And I guess in a way, we fixed each other, too.
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I wish I were big.
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If there's a 13- or 14-year old kid who is yearning for something beyond the social forces in his own world, in his own neighborhood, the library is the only place where he can go to find that. It was exciting and thrilling to me all the time I worked in the library. It's such a force for social good and it can do so much.
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In a complex and troubling world, who wouldn't want to simplify? Everybody does. Everybody wants to simplify and put up a picket fence.
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Must be awfully lucky to see colors like that. I bet they don't even know how lucky they are.
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If you look at the opening of 'Private Ryan,' you are so in the point of view of those guys and there is a whole world swirling all around them. You are learning that geography as they are learning it.