Quotes by Dave Eggers

"High school teachers who want to get reluctant readers turned around need to give the students some say in the reading list. Make it collaborative: The students will feel ownership, and everyone will dig in."

"But there was something psychological happening there that was just a little bit different. And the other thing was, there was no stigma. Kids weren't going into the 'Center-for-Kids-That-Need-More-Help' or something like that. It was 826 Valencia."

"When I was on the bestseller list with the first book, everyone who knows me knows that every week it continued to be on the list was a very dark week for me. Everyone knows that all I wanted was to be off that list."

"The key thing is, even if you only have a couple of hours a month, those two hours shoulder-to-shoulder, next to one student, concentrated attention, shining this beam of light on their work, on their thoughts and their self-expression, is going to be absolutely transformative, because so many of the students have not had that ever before."

"I grew up north of Chicago, not far from where the Schwinn bicycle plant used to be, and was conscious of the fact that these beautiful, everlasting bikes were made just down the road."

"Also, I need deadlines, just like everybody else, especially coming from magazines, newspapers, and stuff like that. I need daily or weekly deadlines to get stuff done, or I continue to do things and not go off on a year of unproductivity."

"When I'm doing work online or on the computer, it's one thing. When I want to read, I want to go elsewhere, and I want to be away from the screen."

"I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house."

"But Saudi Arabia is surprising in a lot of ways. Like any place, or any people, it relentlessly defies easy categorization."

"And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students."

"People are strange, but more than that, they're good. They're good first, then strange."

"You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person: your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion, sitting next to them, listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time."

"I think I'm far too hopeful and trusting. That's something I got from my mum."

"Some of these kids just don't plain know how good they are: how smart and how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them, one human interaction at a time."

"Because I grew up with this naive expectation of people doing right, I get shocked by every little violation."

"Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the tree calligraphic."

"I am a bike enthusiast; there's a certain amount of romance to bikes. They're both beautiful and utilitarian."

"So this is the space during tutoring hours. It's very busy. Same principles: one-on-one attention, complete devotion to the students' work and a boundless optimism and sort of a possibility of creativity and ideas."

"I can remember exactly where I sat when my teacher first read Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach'."

"I'm an amateur science enthusiast. I'm not even a professional enthusiast. I don't know anything I never even passed biology in high school. But I read the science section of the newspaper."