"Now I'm 'Blake Lewis' to the world, but I will always still be Bshorty from Bothell...I've never looked at it like a competition so I think I've won regardless. I won when I got to the top ten; I've already reached my goal."

"Many Frenchmen see their society as drifting in uncertain waters without an anchor. They are concerned by increasingly powerless elected governments, distant bureaucrats who intervene in every aspect …"

"How Adewen stuffed her braid in her mouth at that! Or she'd cover her mirth with her hands and shake till you'd think that the fit was upon her. She did the same too when she wept so you'd never be su…"

"It is certainly curious that among all the millions of books that have been written on every conceivable subject, so few writers have really tried to describe the tissue of their thoughts and the actu…"

"Worldwide, boys are 50 percent more likely than girls to fail to meet basic proficiency in any of the three core subjects of reading, math, and science."