“If a teacher wants to know something why doesn’t she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she’s the teacher!”

Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.

One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.

I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe

Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me to get out of the room and never come back, which I did.

My mother, for example, has the pleasant notion that my day consists of nodding graciously to the rustle of starched curtsies and a chorus of respectful voices bidding me good morning.

To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.

You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.

I’ll never retire as long as I live—that’s like retiring from life! I’ll never stop writing, teaching, lecturing. If you’re in good health, living is exciting on its own.

The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn’t it a magnificent day today?

I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen

I am writing this during my lunch period, because I need to reach towards the outside world of sanity, because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the clerical work still to be done, and because at this hour of the morning normal ladies are still sleeping.

To the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months’ summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect.

Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.

Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.

The clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.

“Language Arts Dept.” is the English office; “literature based on child’s reading level and experiential background” means that’s all they’ve got in the Book Room; “non-academic-minded” is a delinquent; and “It has come to my attention” means you’re in trouble.

We are all listening with different perspectives. I don’t want to impose my subjectivity to the listener.

We didn’t have money for a babysitter, so she always brought me with her to the dancing school. Back then, I was already watching and listening to Michael Jackson for a long time.

I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they’re not alone.

My debut album, ‘Forget the World,’ is all about not listening to the negativity around you and to continue to do what you love, no matter what people think.

When you’re walking down the street or in the car just listening to the radio, and you’re, like , ‘Oh, that’s my song.’ You want to say, ‘Hey Mom!’ That never changes.

If you listen long enough you can hear my skin grow tough love is painful to the touch must be made of stronger stuff.

People talking without speaking, People listening without hearing, Sounds of Silence.

A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.