People need stories...we use stories to teach, to learn, to make sense of the world around us. As long as we need stories, we will need books.

their powerlessness, innocence, and imagination fused to enable them to turn time inside out, travel on the wind, and enter the souls of animals.

That's basically the mantra of Herr Silverman's teaching - think for yourself and do what's right for you, but let others do the same.

You have been blessed to stand on the shoulders of giants. Make sure that someone stands on yours as well. This is the only way of human progress.

Time is an illusion, only the keepers of the illusion are real, and the reality they have spun, keeps us, until we set upon the path of the dream.

I don't like being with grown-up people. I've known that a long time. I don't like it because I don't know how to get on with them.

Leo Strauss's discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought.

I try to remember what I have too often forgotten to my peril: as far as teaching goes, when all you are is right, what you really are is in trouble.

One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.

Some strive to make themselves great. Others help others see and find their own greatness. It's the latter who really enrich the world we live in

This teaching job did not pay a lot of money, because, let's face it, nobody gives a flying fuck about education, but it was a temporary position.

Make a better mousetrap and the world will know it; it can measure and applaud your skill. Make a better man and the world will say he did it himself.

The way I saw it, if my students were willing to pretend I was a teacher, the least I could do was return the favor and pretend that they were writers.

There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own.

The surface of learning is hearing what your ears aren't prepared to hear, and the core of learning is hearing what your ears don't want to hear.