Students want to know, "Are you painting by the numbers, or are you really present as a human being to what you are doing; and is it coming from inside of you?" So I would ask teachers this question: "Do you have a wellgrounded personal experience and conviction concerning whatever it is you are trying to teach?"

Here, I think, is another clue to finding true self and vocation: we must withdraw the negative projections we make on people and situations - projections that serve mainly to mask our fears about ourselves- and acknowledge and embrace our own liabilities and limits.

In every story I have heard, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work.

My favorite topping is one that a lot of people don't like. I love anchovies.

For me, teaching is about weaving a web of connectedness between myself, my students, the subject I'm teaching, and the larger world.

Why does a literary scholar study the world of "fiction"? To show us that the facts can never be understood except in communion with the imagination.

By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.