I don't have to be accountable to some authority, which is why I don't take federal funds. I don't want anyone's monies unless they're monies without strings attached. It's not that we don't need them.

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

Until kids decide, 'I am a miracle. I am unique. There is no one else exactly like me,' they can never draw the conclusion, 'Because I'm a miracle, I will never harm another person who's a miracle like me.' In this slippery world, they all need something to hang on to.

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.

If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.

People have to live by rules in the world. Why do we pretend in school that they don't?

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.