To My Students Quotes

#1. It seems an odd idea to my students that poetry, like all art, leads us away from itself, back to the world in which we live. It furnishes the vision. It shows with intense clarity what is already there.

Helen Bevington

#2. The most important thing taught to my students is to not be so photo realist in what they depict.

Frank Bruno

#3. I would say this to my students all the time, it's about 30% you as the teacher and 70% about them. They tend to think that their role is to be the baby bird in a nest and you're going to feed them? They're going to feed themselves, or they're going to starve.

Tim Gunn

#4. I always talk to my students about the need to write for the joy of writing. I try to sort of disaggregate the acclaim from the act of writing.

Kim Edwards

#5. The number one advice I give to my students is to be a culture creator, not a culture consumer," he continued. "You have to have time to create, and to create, you have to get rid of those things that steal your time. TV is the great time-stealer in American life.

Rod Dreher

#6. I suggest to my students that they write under a pseudonym for a week. That allows young men to write as women, and women as men. It allows them a lot of freedom they don't have ordinarily.

Joyce Carol Oates

#7. I got so tired of hearing those proverbs when I was a child. Now I use them all the time. Sometimes they are the best way to say what needs to be said. I teach them to my students. I have a collection of proverbs for class discussion and writing assignments.

Marva Collins

#8. The message I hope to have sent is just the example of being yourself. I tell this to my students: It's not about copying me or my logic systems. It's about allowing yourself to be yourself.

Frank Gehry

#9. Once I completed the Cube and demonstrated it to my students, I realized it was nearly impossible to put down.

Erno Rubik

#10. There's been no poet, no great poet in the history of poetry who hasn't also been a great reader of poetry. This is sometimes distressing to my students when I tell them this.

Edward Hirsch

#11. I've learned a lot about writing from listening to my students talk.

Marilynne Robinson

#12. People would react to books by authors like James and Austen almost on a gut level. I think it was not so much the message, because the best authors do not have obvious messages. These authors were disturbing to my students because of their perspectives on life.

Azar Nafisi

#13. I'm very staid compared to my students, actually.

Kathy Acker

#14. I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. When I first started writing, I just started writing a novel. It's a hard way to learn to write. I don't recommend it to my students, but it just happens that way for some of us.

Andrea Barrett

#15. I also have my backpack of the tried-and-true, and because it is new to [my students], it becomes fresh to me again as well.

Dorianne Laux

#16. I loved the idea of making history interesting for kids! When Scholastic approached me about 'The 39 Clues', I immediately started going through the 'greatest hits' from my years as a social studies teacher, and picked the historical characters and eras that most appealed to my students.

Rick Riordan

#17. When I am performing, I try to follow the advice I give to my students. This can be very hard - I was never a good student and I find I'm no better when I am the teacher.

Jeff Raz

#18. I talk about it a lot to my students. Musicality never came up in any of own writing education, and I can see why - we don't have the vocabulary for it. Phrasing is intuitive, and its difficult to articulate when it's on and when it's not.

Paul Lisicky

#19. I taught. I lectured at universities. I spoke to my students. I spoke in certain public forums. But what I didn't do was respond to microphones being thrust in my face and saying, what is your relationship with Obama and are you an unrepentant terrorist?

Bill Ayers

#20. I've learned to accept the fact that my students are far too busy preparing for their own legal careers to care one bit about the off-campus antics of Professor Burke. I get the impression that my students are vaguely aware of my novels, but are at best mildly curious.

Alafair Burke

#21. I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

Tayari Jones

#22. It is my belief that conscious African American students ought to be in a constant state of rage and in a constant search for ways to channel that rage into freedom struggle.

Pearl Cleage

#23. In the Raphael Room, the secret turned out to be that only some of the paintings were made by the great master; the rest were made by students. I had liked the ones by Raphael. This was a big jab for my self-confidence in my ability to appreciate art.

Richard P. Feynman

#24. There is a story I always tell my students ... when I came for the 1st time to the US. I didn't speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word "exit" which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :"No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they open leads to success

Pablo

#25. I used to tell my writing students that they must write the books they wished they could come upon - because then the books they hungered and thirsted for would exist.

Anne Lamott

#26. I wanted my students to leave my classroom loving reading and wanting to read more, and if they left my classroom thinking that reading is boring, then I haven't done my job.

Rick Riordan

#27. In my opinion, the United States and many Western nations have a financial disaster coming, caused by our educational system's failure to adequately provide a realistic financial education program for students.

Robert Kiyosaki

#28. I try to tell a lot of stories to make my students aware that the world is a very cool place with many problems that need solving, and that they all can help solve them.

Sarah Parcak

#29. I have to admit that talking authoritatively about my students' stories can make me feel, at times, like an astronaut who has just landed on a new planet and insists on giving guided tours to its inhabitants.

Etgar Keret

#30. It is not only my laboratory and my place of work but also my home, so that on the 30th October I was able to share my happiness immediately with my students and collaborators and, at the same time, with my wife and family.

George Porter

#31. On my way to the parking lot, in quick succession, I saw students wearing t-shirts which read, "Save the whales. Collect the whole set," "Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now," and "Half the people you know are below average." Typical for the Eastern student body.

Neil S. Plakcy

#32. My fellow students there were very smart, but the really novel thing was that they actually seemed to put a lot of effort into their school work. By the end of my first semester there, I began to get into that habit as well.

Eric Allin Cornell

#33. I think it goes back to my high school days. In computer class, the first assignment was to write a program to print the first 100 Fibonacci numbers. Instead, I wrote a program that would steal passwords of students. My teacher gave me an A.

Kevin Mitnick

#34. There are very few works of fiction that take you inside the heads of all characters. I tell my writing students that one of the most important questions to ask yourself when you begin writing a story is this: Whose story is it? You need to make a commitment to one or perhaps a few characters.

Julia Glass

#35. Something I tell my students is to read once; then if you still have problems with it, read it a second time. If you still have problems, get drunk and read it a third time ... and you might get something out of it.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

#36. My task as a language arts teacher is to provide texts that are not so difficult that my students shut down in frustration and not so easy that my students don't push their thinking.

Kimberly Hill Campbell

#37. The time I have already spent at Harvard has been a stimulating experience, and I look forward to developing my relationship and activities with the students, faculty and friends of the Harvard Business School community.

Alex Ferguson

#38. I teach child development and social policy as an undergraduate course, and I tell my students, "Look, on any of these issues, if you don't want to work on it for thirty years, don't start."

Edward Zigler

#39. I went to school to be a psychiatrist. That's where I was going until I had a teacher-student conference with one of my teachers and there were film school pamphlets, and he said, "You don't belong here. Get out. Go to film school."

Bryan Fuller

#40. My teaching exists in a different part of my brain. However, I am lucky enough to teach very smart graduate students.

Dana Spiotta

#41. My attitude about teaching has always been the same. From early on, I wanted to make yoga accessible so that anyone, regardless of ability, could experience its wonder, joy, and power. I encourage students to question, learn, and develop their own personal practice.

David F. Swensen

#42. I tell my students, if you ever become comfortable with your role as criminal defense lawyer, it's time to quit. It should be a constant source of discomfort, because you're dealing with incredible moral ambiguity, and you've been cast into a role which is not enviable.

Alan Dershowitz

#43. As a student at the time, I kind of felt like my only options as a nonfiction writer were to either jump on the personal essay bus or linger back at the station, hoping that some other heretofore unknown mode of transportation was going to magically show up to take me where I wanted to go.

John D'Agata

#44. I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.

Mark Takano

#45. School children and students who love God should never say: "For my part I like mathematics"; "I like French"; "I like Greek." They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.

Simone Weil

#46. I try to teach my students that books are a mirror, reflecting their own lives, and a window, giving them a peek into someone else's.

Donalyn Miller

#47. I had an argument with my students on why they want to present their work in an iBook, it's like your sister who has no design training, put on some outfits in the bedroom, took some pictures, sent them to Apple and after paying 40 quid, you have a portfolio! I can't believe it.

Louise Wilson

#48. My worst boss was a departmental chair who never learned to appreciate new developments in the field. He had contempt for students and younger researchers, and he saw the job of running the department as a nuisance.

Steven Pinker

#49. I always tell my students: I don't care which side you're on. I respect you too much to try to persuade you in 120 minutes a week, much less lure you into pretending that you agree with me. All I want is for you to own this democracy, to see yours, to have a stake in it.

Susan Estrich

#50. I have assigned many of my father's basses to students, without endangering their lives. Also, they do no harm to the fingers.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

#51. I'll have my students try to follow their minds during the course of a day, just to see the way their minds work, the way our minds hop from thing to thing to thing. The Internet mirrors that to such a degree you can actually see it. Show me your search history and I'll show you who you are.

Dani Shapiro

#52. My advice to photographers is to get out there in the field and take photographs but also if they are students to finish their course, learn as many languages as possible, go to movies, read books visit museums, broaden your mind.

Martine Franck

#53. My students - all adults - bring a lot of writing skill to the first class, and they and I get better as the class progresses.

James Thayer

#54. I've been going insane reading my students' papers. Apparently several of them think the Hubble Space Telescope is used to search the universe for hubbles."
~ Ithana Aaronson

Jeanne Birdsall

#55. Lately I've been going to all these high schools talking to the students, answering their questions, listening to what they have to say. It has been an incredible journey to be around them and try to give them what my mother gave me.

Jill Scott

#56. I encourage my students to be honest in their assessment of both the published work we read and the work of their classmates. I think there's always the occasion for discussing elements of craft, whether the student's poem is terrible or quite wonderful.

Cate Marvin

#57. We left my birthplace, Brooklyn, New York, in 1939 when I was 13. I enjoyed the ethnic variety and the interesting students in my public school, P.S. 134. The kids in my neighborhood were only competitive in games, although unfriendly gangs tended to define the limits of our neighborhood.

Irwin Rose

#58. My mother would take groups of students to different countries and always brought us along, so by the time I was 10, I had been to Russia, China, Nicaragua and several other countries.

Eliza Dushku

#59. My job in space will be to observe and write a journal. I am also going to be teaching a class for students on earth about life in space and on the space shuttle and conducting experiments.

Christa McAuliffe

#60. Although I enjoy digging through the library to help students find books, my aim is to help them develop self-confidence in choosing books for themselves.

Donalyn Miller

#61. I think the exercise of trying to figure out how to simplify concepts has been incredibly helpful to me over the last 13 years of teaching and I hope my students have benefited from it.

Joel Greenblatt

#62. I always tell my students that Malcolm X came both to his spirituality and to his consciousness as a thinker when he had solitude to read. Unfortunately, tragically, like so many young black males, that solitude only came in prison.

Bell Hooks

#63. Within one hour of touching the brush to canvas for the first time, my students have a total, complete painting.

Bob Ross

#64. I was a traditional teacher for a time, but my students would ride the energy. I wanted to free people not give them a placebo.

Frederick Lenz

#65. My studio is arranged so that I have a comfortable seating area for meeting with clients, an office area beyond that and a painting area, which includes room for art students to sit and watch as I work.

Doug Dawson

#66. I'll tell you a secret. I'm not responsible for whether my students care or don't care. That care has to come from them - not me." "Where does that leave you?" "No matter what, Ari, my job is to care." "Even when they don't?" "Even when they don't." "No matter what?" "No matter what.

Benjamin Alire Saenz

#67. My classroom is set up to accommodate the different types of assignments students do. Sitting at a single desk the entire class time just doesnt work for this type of class.

Christine Taylor

#68. Teaching does allow me to keep one foot in the youthful waters I tend to occupy in my novels, so I'm thankful for that. My students also remind me on a daily basis that the stories I collected during my district attorney days are actually interesting to people who haven't had that experience.

Alafair Burke

#69. The idea of political content is irrelevant. Content is irrelevant. I always tell my students, "Never forget you're writing words! You know, word one, word two, word three, word four. The words have to be organized. Nothing else does."

Dave Hickey

#70. As a young Marxist in college during the 1950s heyday of the anti-Communist crusade led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, I had more freedom to express my views in class, without fear of retaliation, than conservative students have on many campuses today.

Thomas Sowell

#71. Things that I can do myself, I either do by myself, or teach a willing undergraduate who doesn't know how to do those things by doing it for me. Things that I can't do myself, my graduate students should be doing.

John Maeda

#72. My biggest entertainment in Moscow was to go to the subway and watch people. When American students visited, I watched them; I learned English from them.

Roustam Tariko

#73. I'm always telling my students go to law school or become a doctor, do something, and then write. First of all you should have something to write about, and you only have something to write about if you do something.

Jamaica Kincaid

#74. I never place limits on the potential success of my students. If they're going into acting, they're going to win the Oscar ... If they're going into law, they're going to be chief justice.

Alan Dershowitz

#75. I'm still struggling with the fact that due to my own (selfish) desire to be a writer, my children probably won't have the same opportunities I had growning up. For most students, however, I genuinely think it's about the money. It's a factor, sure. But it just feels like a factor.

Marina Keegan

#76. Like jilted and disappointed lovers, some of my students just want to be left alone.

Kirsten Olson

#77. One of my goals as a professor of English is to teach students to recognize and think critically about what makes something art.

Andrew Hoberek

#78. When I teach, I preach. I thump the Bible. I exhort my students morally. I talk to them about the dedicated life.

Annie Dillard

#79. Society tells my students that people like them should aspire to prison the same way I understood I would go to college. They only listen to media that reinforces what they've been told all their lives: that they are worthless and that they will die or be incarcerated before they reach twenty-five.

Thomm Quackenbush

#80. At this time, all students are to report to the greenhouse."
Scowling, I waved my arm through the spell. It swirled like smoke before dissolving. "Freaking drama queen," I muttered. "How hard would it have been to announce that last night? Or to just do the voice thing?

Rachel Hawkins

#81. I would say that something important for me and for my generation in Northern Ireland was the 1947 Education Act, which allowed students who won scholarships to go on to secondary schools and thence to university.

Seamus Heaney

#82. I couldn't make myself write serious; I was surrounded by serious: in monographs, in articles, in my own dissertation prospectus, in the very earnest e-mails of students telling me just why that paper couldn't be in on time, cross their hearts and hope to get an A-minus.

Lauren Willig

#83. When one hears hoofbeats, medical students are taught, one must think of horses, not zebras. But the doctor who sees my blood count will surely think of horses. He will arrive at a perfectly logical conclusion. It will no occur to him that, this time, it is truly a zebra galloping by.

Tess Gerritsen

#84. My students, alas, usually lack the confidence to acknowledge what would be their most precious asset for learning: their ignorance.

Mark Edmundson

#85. I was a good student in the subjects that I wanted to be good in. The curriculum in my section was excellent.

Jack Kirby

#86. My enthusiasm for joining the New York Film Academy is predicated on my personal explorations into video as well as a sense of responsibility to share my extended experience of photography with committed students in both mediums.

Ralph Gibson

#87. There are surprisingly few real students of the game in baseball; partly because everybody, my eighty-three year old grandmother included, thinks they learned all there was to know about it at puberty. Baseball is very beguiling that way.

Alvin Dark

#88. One of my students told me that every time she learns the name of a plant, she feels as if she is meeting someone new. Giving a name to something is a way of knowing it.

Richard Louv

#89. I cast people from right around me. I was at my alma mater. It's special to have most of the graduate students in it [and] one professor, because I feel like in terms of this school, I was one of the few students lucky enough to break into the art industry or the contemporary art world.

Kalup Linzy

#90. There was another group of students already filing down the hall. College students. We looked like babies beside them. The college girls tossed their hair and giggled. hee hee hee, two years closer to minivans and soccer practices and Botox than the girls from my bus. I wished I hadn't come.

Maggie Stiefvater

#91. My rule in making up examination questions is to ask questions which I can't myself answer. It astounds me to see how some of my students answer questions which would play the deuce with me.

Henry Adams

#92. From my first year on the faculty, there was always so much more I wanted to impart to the students. I decided that, rather than waste the last day of class summarizing the semester, I'd spend my time talking about what I'd learned in life that was useful.

Clayton M Christensen

#93. I hate it when something I've had published "inspires" some nut to imitate what I've written, or some teacher gets fired for having her students read one of my stories or novels.

Richard Matheson

#94. My brother said that at Eton, students were told caning builds character. I suppose girls are caned less because we aren't thought to have much character."
"Which is the sort of thing males say when they don't know any women.

Mary Jo Putney

#95. My whole life has been basically trying to find intelligent students or, you know, highly motivated students and giving them an opportunity to do good science.

James D. Watson

#96. In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science.

Eugenie Scott

#97. When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.

Tony Kushner

#98. I tell my students, if you're interested in marine biology or llama farming, follow that string. Yes, it will probably take you a longer time to write that book, but it's not a race. That's another great thing about being a writer: you don't age out.

Debra Dean

#99. My athleticism was really the core to social acceptance, because in those days the overwhelming number of students came from more of a public school background than I did.

Roger Bannister

#100. It's very hard to find good and wholesome, edifying and challenging writing for the students to perform. In my classroom I strive to do that as best as I can.

Patricia Mauceri