Children without access to quality early education programs start kindergarten with an 18-month disadvantage, and that gap continues to widen. By the time they are in fourth grade, many cannot do math or read at grade level.
Mark Shriver
Related At the fourth grade level, girls at the same percentages of boys say they're interested in caree... CHELSEA CLINTON FOUR OUT OF TEN CHILDREN ARE WITHOUT A SECONDARY LEVEL OF EDUCATION
So many children are leaving sch... JOSEPH MUSCAT Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don't begin t... BOB EHRLICH My daughters are in kindergarten and second grade, so many of the stories they tell, write, or illus... DOREEN CRONIN We live in America, anyone that lives here should be able to understand 6th grade English or read at... CORY COOK If you look at the 10th-grade test, it measures reading, writing and math achievement and the math, ... MARC FRAZER Of this total, 100% learned the numbers, to write their names, and to read. 88% learned to read with... CARLOS MARTINEZ Studies have shown that the fourth and fifth grades are critical to engaging students in math and sc... GEORGE NOLEN We believe that investments in programs such as Head Start and other high quality early education pr... MARTHA BROOKS Although history textbooks contain facts and information and historical fiction provides entertainme... TERRI JOHNSON California is the highest-tax state in the nation and has been for a long time. It has the highest-p... ARTHUR LAFFER In many of these countries, children live in an almost constant state of emergency because they are ... DANIEL TOOLE In many of these countries, children live in an almost constant state of emergency because they are ... DAN TOOLE The philosophy is that these students need special, early attention in order to be ready for kinderg... CHARLES COLE As an industry, you can live with a low-grade fever, but you cannot live with a cancer -- and that's... JENNI ENGEBRETSEN If a willing school board wants to consider race as a factor, shouldn't it be able to do so if, afte... JACK BOGER And this year, when we end the cruel, defeatist practice of passing children who cannot read into fo... MITCH MCCONNELL A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device whic... B.F. SKINNER Polls that have been taken by kindergarten, first- and second-grade teachers indicate that 30 percen... C. EVERETT KOOP Head Start graduates are more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to need special ed... JOE BACA I've been watching these girls since they were in fourth grade. I knew what stride they could play a... CHRIS RASO The first book I ever wrote was in fourth grade and it was called 'Billy's Booger.' It w... WILLIAM JOYCE You can't have a quality education without a sound financial background. They are getting quality ed... KYLE HART What I bring to the table is experience and dedication of working with other board members, to try t... JACK HILL Most contracts should be easy to understand and written at an eighth grade level. JOHN JONES We just had our first budding artist class (for) kindergarten through second grade and they were at ... GAIL PARSONS Certainly by the time I was in seventh grade, I knew I had to have a long education if I wanted to b... NANCY ROMAN In the state of Wisconsin it's mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences have ... GAYLORD NELSON What we're doing is getting people, primarily Truman students, to go out and read a book having to d... AMY CURRIER Experts say that if children can't read by the end of the fifth grade, they lose self-confidence and... DIRK KEMPTHORNE Obesity and intervention studies that we found were based on students in grades three to five. So we... BRENDA VOSS In the state of Wisconsin it's mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences h... GAYLORD NELSON We have several reading programs going on at the same time so we limited this one to kindergarten, f... BETTY KING I was a paper boy, beginning the summer between my fourth-grade and fifth-grade years. DAVID BOIES Let me ask you: Should only children of the wealthy have access to quality early education? Should o... LINCOLN CHAFEE He was in the fourth grade and I was in the second grade. We saw each other everyday and grew up tog... ELIZABETH WHITE I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had... ALAN KAY It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age ... GUY DEBORD Since most sexual abuse begins well before puberty, preventive education, if it is to have any effec... JUDITH LEWIS HERMAN These policies, which consign 50 percent of children to poverty, neglect quality early education, ge... JEFFREY GOLDHAGEN We have a plan that creates universal access programs at the state level which allows folks to acces... ERIC CANTOR The people in charge of the program wanted to encourage kids to pursue math at the middle school lev... KAREN RAMBO Experts say that if children can't read by the end of the fifth grade, they lose self-confidence... DIRK KEMPTHORNE These record enrollment numbers reflect success in diversifying our sports programming and offering ... BRAD LITTLE When I was in sixth grade, they slashed the budgets for all of our school art programs, so my grandp... JARRETT J. KROSOCZKA Research has shown time and time again that infants who receive the high-quality child care and earl... JUDY BIGGERT My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who w... CLARENCE THOMAS Many students have no familiarity with what engineers do, the types of jobs they hold, or the contri... BETH MCGRATH I think we put our children at an enormous disadvantage by not educating them in war, by not letting... SUZANNE COLLINS When women earn more, families are stronger, and children have better access to quality health care ... KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND I did it from kindergarten through eighth grade. I twirled and I danced. DANIELLE WILSON I was a really good student. In the sixth grade, I was reading at a twelfth grade reading level. But... JAY-Z When you are a kid you have your own language, and unlike French or Spanish or whatever you start le... JODI PICOULT By the fourth grade, I graduated to an erector set and spent many happy hours constructing devices o... STEVEN CHU We know that kids with quality early learning opportunities are more likely to graduate from high sc... BILL RICHARDSON I loved teaching. I used to teach fourth grade. BRUCE COVILLE Investing in high-quality early childhood education has extraordinary returns, not only for Virginia... MARK WARNER We have two schools with high numbers of disadvantages students. Now, the state mandates a 22-to-1 s... BILLY THOMPSON You can't even mix kindergarten and first grade. Because of their different cognitive levels. CLAUDIA SMITH When I was in fourth grade, a novelist came to talk to my English class. She told us that being an a... J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN I came up poor. My mother only had a fourth-grade education. My dad didn't have any education at... EVANDER HOLYFIELD There is no bilingual child care, and these children are arriving to kindergarten without the same e... MARTA KOESLING A church is an incubator, a nursery, a grade school. You start where people are and move them to whe... ADRIAN ROGERS We're finding ourselves in a crunch. At this point, all our kindergarten classes are full. All our f... MARILYN KING The books we read change over the years as new books come out and they change over the grades. Books... BRIAN WHITE Just as children in the San Joaquin Valley deserve access to a UC education, children here also dese... BRANDY NIKAIDO I have four relatively small children, and around fourth grade, they start doing big projects on Nat... SOLEDAD O'BRIEN Nationally, 70 percent of students are below grade level [in reading], BOB WISE If we learned everything there is to know in kindergarten, it was
promptly drummed out of us in firs... PETER MCWILLIAMS Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you... PETER LYNCH In fourth grade I had a high school reading level, but I didn't want to go to school and I didn&... FREDDIE PRINZE The great majority of surveyed executives are using faint praise to suggest there's a sizeable gap b... DAVE PITTMAN I'm not trying to make an excuse. We're concerned with any school - and not just any school, but any... DON MARTIN It is not that they are not needed and it is not that they are not valuable. Our legal mission, and ... BILL WAYE Without those days they can't progress forward into the next grade, so that's a concern of a lot of ... JOHN SCHULTZ We never imagined going through to the 12th grade with our kids graduating, having sports teams, and... BRENT GOLDMAN When I was nine, I started reading Homer. I would get up at four o'clock in the morning, before ... FRANZ WRIGHT You have got to educate people, and you need to enforce existing laws, so that people do not intrude... CLIFF BLACK You have got to educate people, and you need to enforce existing laws, so that people do not intrude... CLIFF BLACK In fifth grade, my art teacher had our entire grade draw pictures of insects. She submitted all of t... KAITLIN BESSEMER In fourth grade, I learned that reading was serious business, not just a pleasant way to pass the ti... WALTER KIRN The pros and cons of using the apron are likely above my pay grade, but with or without it, the Indy... CHARLIE KIMBALL In the past, our special ed kids sometimes took out-of-level tests, so a high school kid might take ... DAVE WILMES It got so bad that by the time I was graduated, the only reading I did was in order to get the grade... R. A. SALVATORE My dad had an eighth grade education, and everything that he did in his life was just stuff that he ... MITCH PILEGGI This is really interesting. When I was in the 9th grade, I flunked 9th grade algebra. I couldn't cop... JOHN WARNOCK She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to ... FLANNERY O'CONNOR She was having trouble in kindergarten and we questioned it, but not a whole lot because she wasn't ... LINDA BOYD In many cases the family needs income so the student will drop out. Literature on this issue also sh... ELAINE LACY Many of these Skills for Life qualifications are at level 2 and many of them are being gained by 16-... ALAN WELLS Access to over 30 month aged cattle should open up in the third or fourth quarters of 2006. DENNIS LAYCRAFT The judge ruled the state needs to provide better early childhood interventions and programs in orde... BOBBY STEPP I can't talk about the education of black children if I ignored two of my nieces who were a coup... ROLAND MARTIN Most kids become the class clown in the fourth or fifth grade. For me, it started when I was 40. DEBRA GALANT When mothers earn their fair share, young children have greater access to quality health care, educa... KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND He could do the work of any grown man by the time he was in the eighth grade. DEMA GUINN When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work... THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN The education market continues to be one of the strongest growth areas for Axis and IP surveillance.... FREDRIK NILSSON An early attempt at education choice was charter schools. These were meant to attract the best and b... BOB BECKEL I'm remembering one book that I wrote, 'Fourth Grade Rats,' that took a month to write, ... JERRY SPINELLI
More Mark Shriver
I miss both of my parents terribly every day, but especially as we approach Thanksgiving. We always ... MARK SHRIVER The roots of racism lie deep in man's nature, wounded and bruised by original sin. SARGENT SHRIVER It is well to be prepared for life as it is, but it is better to be prepared to make life better tha... SARGENT SHRIVER We have nothing to offer
you.. say the cows of
their gravy.. but our
blood, sweat, and tears.
(cows'... SAIOM SHRIVER I think that public service is tough on a family - no ifs, ands, buts about it. I have my own person... MARIA SHRIVER Those who work for plant rights
don't parse parsley
nor bomb poppies
nor purchase antipeople papers... SAIOM SHRIVER Sunwands turn rain droplets
into blackberry drupelets
as enkindled okra seeds
acknowledge heliocr... SAIOM SHRIVER War profiteer cartels
and the Cheney Wolfowitz regime
are called The United States
by warwhore news ... SAIOM SHRIVER On a March clothesline
.. transparent icicles in a row
in the bright sun
they drip and glow
Marks o... SAIOM SHRIVER CLOVER VEIL
A clover veil..
violets the vale
neith skies cloudclad
or when ultraviolet
sun prevails. SAIOM SHRIVER The ocean:
rocking cradle of the world, sunset stairway to the stars
.. only by great masters trod, ... SAIOM SHRIVER He needn't reach the stars..
stars' light reaches him..
He needn't climb to God.
Inside him .. Elohi... SAIOM SHRIVER Violent can be sound and light
in waking us from sleep of night.
Gently comes the dawn's twilight
Ea... SAIOM SHRIVER A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed re... LIONEL SHRIVER I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its to... LIONEL SHRIVER The tide sent into
the cleft of rock Neptune's
polyfingered hand of
welcome. SAIOM SHRIVER 61 died that day in the 1st infantry..in Vietnam..
two? rows of body bags.. the fruit of war...dryi... SAIOM SHRIVER The trees of life
randomly grow
but the graves of Arlington
are set in rows. SAIOM SHRIVER FOUR FLOWERS
The Sun Arose
in Morning Glory
with His Goldenrod
Wanding Violet
to Rose
(to C and R Da... SAIOM SHRIVER He has changed He has grown
No longer bud but Love Fullblown. SAIOM SHRIVER They called the wind
lackadaisical..
but because he in freedom blows
the world will never
lack for d... SAIOM SHRIVER From the shore.. one looks
upward to the sanddune grass..
10,000
green brushes attempting
where the... SAIOM SHRIVER The olive tree is
the altar of Allah.
On it Allah has placed
olives free for all.
May Allah allow n... SAIOM SHRIVER Each night the Tree of Nut
out of naught knits neat nuts. SAIOM SHRIVER The chalice is ephemeral.
Jesus' blood eternal. SAIOM SHRIVER One by one
in many countries
they break through
the ice of fear..
cups of crocuses
.. stand up in ca... SAIOM SHRIVER Reborn, Sappho
wears monks' saffron. SAIOM SHRIVER No matter who you are, what you've accomplished, what your financial situation is - when you'... MARIA SHRIVER Respect for another man's opinion is worthy. It is the realization that any opinion is valuable,... SARGENT SHRIVER My father never was and isn't a mean man. You know, he never was ruthless. And he succeeded in l... MARIA SHRIVER It's the most rewarding thing to be a civil servant. SARGENT SHRIVER Do the job first. Worry about the clearance later. SARGENT SHRIVER They were determined to find something mechanically wrong with him - because broken machines are eas... LIONEL SHRIVER I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common co... LIONEL SHRIVER If education does not create a need for the best in life, then we are stuck in an undemocratic, rigi... SARGENT SHRIVER Racism cannot be cured solely by attacking some of the results it produces, like discrimination in h... SARGENT SHRIVER The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we're not apologetic about i... SARGENT SHRIVER When Roosevelt came along, I approved of his program, generally. I figured an economic system should... SARGENT SHRIVER A jade curtain of
willow fronds
parts world of
green earth
from that of blue pond
A grey curtain
of ... SAIOM SHRIVER Those who focused on
the shock of shards
as the phoenix bird
burst from his shell
nearly missed the ... SAIOM SHRIVER A little birdie flew overhead a traffic light of green and red.
From her diagonal point of view she ... SAIOM SHRIVER It snows at sea.. quiet.... falls in flakes * melting designs**
leave form for All. SAIOM SHRIVER The bee's favorite couplet: a sunup brimming buttercuplet. SAIOM SHRIVER How do the words
of the Peaceful Master
become the tirades
of warmonger pastors? SAIOM SHRIVER Busy bees chased
the bloom chaste
Though
they crawled on her
clothes
her petals unfolded
and those ... SAIOM SHRIVER They did the little boy turkey named Art... choke
and then served his dead body with artichokes. SAIOM SHRIVER A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whet... LIONEL SHRIVER I think everybody has tragedy in their life. Everybody has hurdles in their life. Everybody has toug... MARIA SHRIVER The sun with light umber
touches vined cucumber
The more he tickles
the more there are pickles. SAIOM SHRIVER FIRE HAS LEFT THE HEARTH
Fire has left the hearth
Nautilus climbed from shell
Perfume flowed from... SAIOM SHRIVER We gave him a pitcher. He gave us the sea. SAIOM SHRIVER When God's green grows it's rarely in rows
Awry the rye rises .. unruly the rose. SAIOM SHRIVER Weeding is plant racism. SAIOM SHRIVER You are the nectar, the hummingbird, the clover.
You are the bloom, the
bee, the OerHoverer.
You a... SAIOM SHRIVER Love, not force, rides the horse. SAIOM SHRIVER The only genuine elite is the elite of those men and women who gave their lives to justice and chari... SARGENT SHRIVER Women somehow get portrayed as one type. You're either a feminist or you're not. You're ... MARIA SHRIVER If a young person has any idealism at all, it's strongest about the time he finishes college. SARGENT SHRIVER I like to make jokes; I consider myself a funny person. I just think making jokes about people who a... MARIA SHRIVER Oh a cockroach is better luck than a cricket upon the hearth
for her magnetizes to your home those... SAIOM SHRIVER Oh a cockroach is better luck than a cricket upon the hearth
for he magnetizes to your home those w... SAIOM SHRIVER Oh Martin Sometimes your voice was the thunder..Sometimes it was the falling rain. Always it burst o... SAIOM SHRIVER He decried that any would
add another hue
unto the rainbow
yet we would ope to
saffron and jade
and... SAIOM SHRIVER The dousing wand
The lightning rod
Conductor's baton
Will's aligned spine
They find the water,
invok... SAIOM SHRIVER Out of the sea
the sun aborning
Not adorned but
all adorning
with his awesome light
of morning
says ... SAIOM SHRIVER Rigid judgmental
opinions
can block descent
of Spirit's pinions. SAIOM SHRIVER As the longfingered sun
reaches out to touch
a cloistered trillium
or a lake trembles in
the light ... SAIOM SHRIVER How awestriking. How sublime..that out of muck and mud and dirt and slime God makes lemons and God m... SAIOM SHRIVER Yet if there's no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life wi... LIONEL SHRIVER The existence of other people is essentially awkward. LIONEL SHRIVER Okay, it's like this. You wake up, you watch TV, and you get in the car and you listen to the radio.... LIONEL SHRIVER I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't alway... LIONEL SHRIVER The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity. LIONEL SHRIVER I didn't care about anything. And there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which ... LIONEL SHRIVER Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life. LIONEL SHRIVER In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainl... LIONEL SHRIVER ...You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have... LIONEL SHRIVER At work, you're replaceable... but as a parent, you're irreplaceable. MARIA SHRIVER Still, I may have been glad to scratch the dry surface of our day-to-day peaceableness the way Viole... LIONEL SHRIVER You grab one or two cookies without even thinking about it. Or if you have something bad in the morn... ALANA SHRIVER I'd still like to lose about 20 pounds, but I feel like I'm a whole new person. ALANA SHRIVER I think they knew it was tough being a fat kid in school. They tried to help me lose the weight, but... ALANA SHRIVER Racists are irrational and illogical in their attempts to justify their prejudices. SARGENT SHRIVER Any idealist who tries to join the Peace Corps must realize he is not going to change the world over... SARGENT SHRIVER I wondered why people ever tried to accomplish anything when attainment of every sort was inbuilt wi... LIONEL SHRIVER Why would you want to sell millions of people on the illusion that they knew you, when they didn't? LIONEL SHRIVER Jews have suffered persecution from misguided Christians who tortured the Jews for their part in kil... SARGENT SHRIVER I lost myself in the process and I realized how much I had identified myself with Maria Shriver, new... MARIA SHRIVER You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of... LIONEL SHRIVER I don't believe in gutter politics. I don't believe in gutter journalism. MARIA SHRIVER We all know what happens to first ladies who shoot their mouths off. MARIA SHRIVER to keep on doing the work and not worry what other people have to say. MARIA SHRIVER I thought a lot about what I could say here today. I also thought a lot about what I couldn't or sho... MARIA SHRIVER All right. This is what I should do. I should support what you're doing. MARIA SHRIVER We should check where we are next year. I hope everyone is in this for the long haul. MARIA SHRIVER If kids are going to be on campus six hours a day, let's be responsible about what we give them. MARIA SHRIVER I think that public service is tough on a family -- no ifs, ands, buts about it. And I have my own p... MARIA SHRIVER I don't believe in gutter politics. I don't believe in gutter journalism. MARIA SHRIVER One of my greatest joys is poetry. I read it almost every day, and I've even taken a stab at wri... MARIA SHRIVER O Lord to You we give thanks
that in time Polish horses ... defeat Nazi tanks. SAIOM SHRIVER The ice does not in pain scream
when in the sun he melts into stream
nor does he in pain scream
when... SAIOM SHRIVER Do you want to be
with your love by the sea
hearing the gullsong
smelling the salt air
feeling the s... SAIOM SHRIVER Jesus' Fig Tree
He did belittle you..
but soon he'll bebig you..
and in the spring
with blooms he... SAIOM SHRIVER How many have been frozen gored starved or blown apart
by Hitler, LBJ, Genghis Khan, Churchill, or ... SAIOM SHRIVER Does he say novenas
for those with no venus
(to Dan Brown). SAIOM SHRIVER My love for you
a yearling became
many eons ago
Saiom Shriver. SAIOM SHRIVER HEART PERFUME
A rose fullblown
is the opentoall heart
.. fragrance flows from it
.. the perfume of l... SAIOM SHRIVER Don't think of him as a Republican, think of him as the man I love; and if that doesn't work, think ... MARIA SHRIVER We sought out iconic companies who make iconic products. BOBBY SHRIVER But indifference would ultimately commend itself as a devastating weapon. LIONEL SHRIVER It's always inspiring to me to meet people who feel that they can make a difference in the world... MARIA SHRIVER He looks uncomfortable, and in this respect the garb is apt. Kevin is uncomfortable; the tiny clothi... LIONEL SHRIVER Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair an... LIONEL SHRIVER Beware of what "everybody says". LIONEL SHRIVER Discomfort begets discomfort in others. LIONEL SHRIVER Sure...the boy was precocious. But having been precocious himself, Lowell was never wowed by teenage... LIONEL SHRIVER His weight makes him a social pariah. It reduces the likelihood he’ll remarry. It has grave implic... LIONEL SHRIVER Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade. LIONEL SHRIVER That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable. LIONEL SHRIVER People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment. LIONEL SHRIVER Our mothers give us so many gifts. They give us the precious gift of life, of course, but they also ... MARIA SHRIVER Still, through a complex combination of optimism and longing and bravado, you would round it up. Whi... LIONEL SHRIVER I never ride just to ride. I ride to catch a fox. I play baseball to make the team. SARGENT SHRIVER You don't wanna walk around and say, 'I'm somebody's niece, I'm somebody's c... MARIA SHRIVER I want to warn anyone who sees the Peace Corps as an alternative to the draft that life may well be ... SARGENT SHRIVER In the Peace Corps, the volunteer must be a fully developed, mature person. He must not join to run ... SARGENT SHRIVER A line has to be drawn somewhere between what is essential and what is peripheral. SARGENT SHRIVER My own apathy is bone chilling. LIONEL SHRIVER It's an apathy so absolute that it's like a hole you might fall in. LIONEL SHRIVER I came to regard my body in a new light. For the first time I apprehended the little mounds on my ch... LIONEL SHRIVER The Peace Corps would give thousands of young Americans a chance to see at first hand the conditions... SARGENT SHRIVER It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away... LIONEL SHRIVER As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occu... SARGENT SHRIVER Change is like that: you are no longer where you were; you are not yet where you will get; you are n... LIONEL SHRIVER Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison. "Yes, we're all alike," I said.... LIONEL SHRIVER In Kevin's book, unwitnessed disobedience is wasteful. LIONEL SHRIVER There is one province in which, sooner or later, virtually everyone gets dealt a leading role--hero,... LIONEL SHRIVER He's at home recovering and is doing great. EVELYN SHRIVER I think I had been something of a nuisance. They thought if I had my hands full, I wouldn't bother t... EVELYN SHRIVER He prizes ambiguity; he loves to keep you guessing. LIONEL SHRIVER He wasn't mad, he was sad. LIONEL SHRIVER Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we ag... LIONEL SHRIVER The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive... LIONEL SHRIVER We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved o... LIONEL SHRIVER I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself in its tot... LIONEL SHRIVER Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just ... LIONEL SHRIVER Alec Issignois said a camel was a horse
made by a committee.. but a camel is an animal created by
... S N SHRIVER An internal breakthrough is a burden, an external one is a blessing. MARK I'm a city boy. I grew up in a big city, in Birmingham, and I want to write about a city. It'... MARK BILLINGHAM Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. MARK TWAIN My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water. MARK TWAIN Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others. MARK TWAIN It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure tha... MARK TWAIN We shall never change our political leaders until we change the people who elect them. MARK SKOUSEN The travel and tourism industry is the lifeblood of many states around the country - including Flori... MARK FOLEY The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession. MARK TWAIN India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India ... MARK TWAIN Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own. MARK TWAIN I never let schooling interfere with my education. MARK TWAIN Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. MARK TWAIN Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. MARK TWAIN The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed rig... MARK TWAIN There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress. MARK TWAIN In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours. MARK TWAIN Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here firs... MARK TWAIN But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one... MARK TWAIN The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. MARK TWAIN The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. MARK TWAIN Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of ti... MARK TWAIN It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. MARK TWAIN The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. MARK TWAIN The lack of money is the root of all evil. MARK TWAIN Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. MARK TWAIN When Facebook was getting started, nothing used real identity - everything was anonymous or pseudony... MARK ZUCKERBERG Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled. MARK TWAIN Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident. MARK TWAIN Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired. MARK TWAIN Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. MARK TWAIN My success was due to good luck, hard work, and support and advice from friends and mentors. But mos... MARK WARNER There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MARK TWAIN Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. MARK TWAIN Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside... MARK TWAIN Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. MARK TWAIN The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. MARK TWAIN Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. MARK TWAIN I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping. MARK TWAIN The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. MARK TWAIN All generalizations are false, including this one. MARK TWAIN 'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read. MARK TWAIN I wear the same outfit or, at least, a different copy of it almost every day. MARK ZUCKERBERG The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a ba... MARK TWAIN The secret of getting ahead is getting started. MARK TWAIN Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. MARK TWAIN I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places. MARK TWAIN There was a point when I was 15 or 16 that I realized that my father wanted me to be a loner. I deci... MARK VONNEGUT There is plenty of blame to go around for the U.S. housing bubble, but not much of it belongs to Fan... MARK ZANDI Human cultural diversity is vast; the range of cultural practices, beliefs, and languages that we sp... MARK PAGEL I made my name and reputation DJing in hip-hop clubs in New York. 'Celebrity DJ' is a term t... MARK RONSON Kids don't need to be taught the value of making; they are natural makers, at least until tradit... MARK FRAUENFELDER Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. MARK TWAIN