“The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.”

“There are the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them.”

“There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it.”

“I dislike it when instead of saying Jew they say Hebrew or Israelite, or Semite, I do not like it and why should a Negro want to be called colored. Why should we want to lose being a Negro… I have stated that a noun to me is a stupid thing, if you know a thing and its name why bother about it but you have to know its name to talk about it. Well its name is Negro if it is a Negro and Jew if it is a Jew and both of them are nice strong names and so let us keep them.”

“Where have you been, Shelly? Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Do you want to see the memos…? They're nuts… they used to call in every week […] Did you see how they were living? […] The people are insane. They just like talking to salesmen.”

“The only difference [between promoting a book and a CD] is when I do the readings. My fans are out there in full force, but it's nice to have all the kids there as well. I really love this evolution of writing. Writing is my core, and writing the book was like writing a really long love song. I have 31 pages to elaborate instead of three minutes. And my target audience, although it is children, I don't talk down to them. I want the parents to find it interesting. [Children] sit in my lap. I love it. I've always tried to turn an arena into an intimate setting. So, if I'm already in an intimate setting... You get to talk to a few hundred people, and you get to really bring them in, to have an exchange with them that often doesn't occur on the stage.”

“What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?”

“I like writing. It's the most fun I've ever had at anything. You can build your own little world and — like a kid with his toy trains, — except instead of trains I have tanks and ships and airplanes and things… I get to make them do all the things I want them to do, and if I don't like the way things work out, I start again.”

“You cannot talk to people successfully if they think you are not interested in what they have to say or you have no respect for them.”

“If you would have a right to account of things from illiterate people, let them tell their story in their own way; if you put them upon talking according to logical rules, you will confound them.”