I believe the more difficult a child is, the more I want that child. But I won't take a child until the parent brings him to us. So it is just the opposite - we get the ones that no one else will take. We get sawdust, and we have to make boards out of it.

Death cannot put the brakes on a good dream.

Kids don't fail. Teachers fail, school systems fail. The people who teach children that they are failures, they are the problem.

I was very, very unhappy with even the so-called very elite schools. The one thing I've always done every day with my children is to watch what they do at school, and I was always a bit unhappy with the academic program. It was a kind of hit and miss.

None of you has ever failed. School may have failed you. Goodbye to failure, children. Welcome to success.

Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.

Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you will do best.