“And that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.”

Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.

I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a long time, you get all this attention. Just because you survived? Of course, I survived a lot.

A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.

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.

You look like gold. I’ve been fooled before, but now I know I’ve made the mistake in the past. But now I, now I know the difference from gold and brass.

I’ve never had a really creative idea sitting at my desk. All the big ideas that made a difference happened when I was playing outside.

We know in history that great individuals have totally changed everything, whether it be Jesus Christ or Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill or Albert Einstein. I actually think every person can make a difference.

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word – extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me…

Everyone gets the same twenty-four hours in a day, the difference is how you use it.

In New York I was always offered the hot, sexy roles. But in L.A. I was offered the plain, dowdy roles. It says a lot about the difference between the coasts

The only difference between ‘try’ and ‘triumph’ is varying degrees of ‘umph’

A bomb is a bomb, what’s the difference between different kinds of bombs? All bombs are to kill, but it’s about how to use it.