Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.

Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy. You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.

Education can't make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.

The heart has its reasons; it's the mind that's suspect.

I want to point the way to something that should forever lure them, when the TV set is broken and the movie is over and the school bell has rung for the last time.

To the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months' summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect. 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.

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.