“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!”

Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.

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.

People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.

Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.

Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.

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.

Everything I wrote about wasn’t about me, but about the people listening.

I can only listen to what I’m working on, at the time. I can’t listen to anything else because I don’t want to copy it.

I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got.

When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.

I believe there’s an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.

When I look for what I’m going to listen to I go backwards. I’m always going the other way you see. Most people are trying to figure out ‘how do I get in the fast lane going that way?’. I’m going in the other direction. I wanna find the oldest thing to do.

Consider the source, Don’t be a fool by listening to a fool.

My father always told me that. Nobody knows anything, so don’t listen to anyone else.