“After forty years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn if provided with appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.”

…a student attains ‘higher order thinking’ when he no longer believes in right or wrong”. “A large part of what we call good teaching is a teacher´s ability to obtain affective objectives by challenging the student’s fixed beliefs. …

Therefore, if we are effective, the distribution of grades will be anything but a normal curve. In fact, a normal curve is evidence of our failure to teach.

The normal curve is a distribution most appropriate to chance and random activity. Education is a purposeful activity and we seek to have students learn what we would teach.

A large part of what we call teaching is that the teacher should be able to use education to reorganize a child’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.

What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn if provided with appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.

While what is superstition, fad, and myth can be recognized as such and used only when there is nothing else to support us in our frustration and despair.

Creativity follows mastery, so mastery of skills is the first priority for young talent.

We need to be much clearer about what we do and do not know so that we don’t continually confuse the two. If I could have one wish for education, it would be the systematic ordering of our basic knowledge in such a way that what is known and true can be acted on.

The first time I saw a review of one of my permaculture books was three years after I first started writing on it. The review started with, “Permaculture Two is a seditious book.” And I said, “At last someone understands what permaculture’s about.”

My parents used to throw great New Year’s Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment.

I really think the acoustics that Gibson’s been making for the last ten years or so are as good as any the company has ever produced and that’s saying a lot.

A curve ball is not something you can pick up overnight. It took me years to perfect mine.

I created Batman about 10 years before Ian Fleming created James Bond.

Even if the whole human race dies off because we keep fighting and killing each other and being heartless, the planet will take care of itself. Eventually, after millions of years.

But you talk to most filmmakers and it is six, seven, eight years trying to get things off the ground. It is incredible really.

I’ll admit that the discovery of evolution is humbling, but it is also empowering. It transforms our relationship to the life around us. Instead of being outsiders watching the natural world go by, we are insiders.