"Directing has only increased my admiration and respect for what it is that actors do."

"My perfect day is constantly changing. Right now, it would be to lie around in a hammock reading with a portable phone and a table of food next to it. I would spend all day there. And that's all that I can possibly come up with on the spur of the moment."

"It seems I have a hard time being attracted to someone unless I respect what they do on some level. Otherwise, I would feel disdain for them. Which is not always pleasant in a relationship. Sometimes it's fun though."

"I have several dogs and several cats who aren't really mine. In fact, they think that I am theirs. I'd like to have some goats and chickens, but I travel around too much."

"School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them."

"The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge."

"I stand before you as the governor of Texas but also stand before you the son of two tenant farmers. Ray Perry who came home after 35 bombing missions over Europe to work his little corner of land out there and Amelia who made sure that my sister Milla and I had everything that we needed, included hand sewing my clothes until I went off to college."

"Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form."