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?

What all good teachers have in common, however, is that they set high standards for their students and do not settle for anything less.

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.

We've been brainwashed into thinking that it takes more monies than it actually does to educate children. That's been one of the brainwash jobs.

You can't find me 20 children in Chicago, I don't care which section you go in - you can be on Michigan Avenue or here - and they won't be able to tell you that y is a vowel when it's the final syllable in a word, as in Nancy and icy. And no one bothers to teach the rules anymore - "i before e except after c."

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