Michael Dirda

Books don't only furnish a room: they also make the best holiday gifts.

A job should bring enough for a worker and family to live on, but after that, self-realization, the exercise of one's gifts and talents, is what truly matters.

Close friends, or those in my pay, sometimes call me a literary polymath, while others say that I'm just a shallow dilettante, superficial and breezy, with a faux-naif style.

When I was a little girl, I remember carrying my orange UNICEF carton with me as I went Trick-or-Treating.

I'm quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves. I've had my fill of politics.

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?