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

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 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.

The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.

When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.

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!

Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.

Best marks go to cheaters and memorizers. Marks depend on memorizing and not on real knowledge. When you cram into your head for a test you may get a high mark but forget it the next day. That’s not an education.

“Let it be a challenge to you” means you’re stuck with it; “interpersonal relationships” is a fight between kids; “ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline” means call the cops.

God’s words trump all opinions, including mine, and in the end, I believe God’s words lead to life.

I’m holding on so tightly to the promise that if nothing lasts forever, someday, this sadness will end too.

Every day we keep telling the same stories. Over and over. We forget that our endings can be different. So can the plot. I think it’s time for some surprise endings.

So what if you end up buying a size 6 instead of a 4? You can always cut out the label at home, and you’ll pretty soon forget whatever that number was because you’ll be too busy admiring how fantastic you look.

Now is the moment that never ends.

If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.

I am enslaved to my work, always wanting the impossible, and never, I believe, have I been less favoured by the endlessly changeable weather.

If you chuck away too many things, you end up discovering there was value in them.