“The first thing, of course, is to find a vacancy, a place where a teacher is wanted, and the second thing is to make the school officials believe you are just the person for the position.”
“Composure, a level head, a knowledge of what you want done, and why you want it done and faith in your own ability to have it done gives composure to the whole school. Restlessness, lack of faith in self, fear of failure, these bring about the very conditions you are striving to avoid,”
“The petty worries of the school room must not be carried to your home or boarding place.”
“I received comments on how extraordinary it was that I could keep up speaking for exactly 45 minutes. Indeed, in an age of soundbites lasting some seconds and of quick quotes in the news, all those minutes do seem like an eternity, easy to get lost in. Yet, wait a moment. Television is not the only place where speeches are given. Some hundred thousand teachers teach every day. They all speak 45 minutes, more times a day. They have been doing this for years. Every teacher knows exactly when the time will be over and that by then his speech will need to come to a natural end. It is this tension that determines the success of a lesson. It is a sign of the times that we forget these daily achievements in education. A million students daily attend several ‘live’ lectures and this in secondary education alone. These are high ratings!”
“Can writing ever be taught? The best answer to that was given obliquely by the rock musician David Lee Roth. When asked if money could buy happiness he said, no, but with money you could buy the big boat and go right up to where the people were happy. With a teacher you can go right up to where the writing is done; the leap is made alone with vision, subject, passion, and instinct. So a writer comes to the page with vision in her heart and craft in her hands and a sense of what a story might be in her head. How do the three come together? My thesis is the old one: they merge in the physical writing—inside the act of writing, not from the outside. The process is the teacher.”
“The best teaching is often both an intellectual creation and a performing art.”
“You must clear out what you don t want, to make room for what you do want to arrive.”
“Sometimes, to escape a bad relationship and reclaim our lives, we have to break a piece of our heart off, like a wolf chews its leg off to escape a steel trap.”
“You best teach others about healthy boundaries by enforcing yours on them.”
“Who you allow into your life, mind and heart are among the most important decisions you will ever make.”
“Who you spend your time with is who you are, or who you will soon become.”
“You must firmly, absolutely and ruthlessly protect your safety and sanity.”
“Sometimes you have to get away from what you know to discover what you don t know.”
“If your positivity immune system is low, any exposure to a person afflicted with negativity can poison your life.”
“Excessive self-criticism is a bad habit and extraordinarily self-destructive. Don t be your own worst enemy!”
“Genuine wisdom has two major conditions: you cannot teach it, and you cannot make someone learn it.”
“Have compassion for people as long as you are one of them too.”