I want my kids to know that they're just as good and just as American as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Dr. Martin Luther King. My worst fear is they will become ordinary.

That's the beauty of art--we strive for perfection but never achieve it. The journey is everything.

The reason I love teaching, it's like being a miner. I find all these undiscovered jewels and, with the right motivation, they're amazed at what they can do. I have to show them their capability.

I want my students to love to read. Reading is not a subject. Reading is a foundation of life, an activity that people who are engaged with the world do all the time

It’s not the job of the teacher to save a child’s soul; it is the teacher’s job to provide an opportunity for the child to save his own soul.

I don't think we expect enough of students. They just need someone to show them the way.

Teach like your hair's on fire!

Good teachers are an endangered species because they're giving up because of the tests and everything.

I love Shakespeare. In Shakespeare, tragedy is not just something that's bad. It's something that could be good and is bad.

Baseball is a religion in my classroom. It's a very important part of life, baseball.

I always tell the kids that excellence is like pregnancy. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not.

That's when you know for sure somebody loves you. They figure out what you need and they give it to you -- without you asking.

It must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom's specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.

Nothing in life that’s worth anything is easy.

Marriages that made out of love (so-called "love-matches") have error as their father and misery (necessity) as their mother.

Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.

People said women couldn't swim the Channel, but I proved they could.

You have no control over how much talent you possess. You control only what you do with it.

People can say what they want, but historically, feminism in the Dominican Republic has been extremely strong.

People tend to think of fairy tales as archetypal. They are also extremely sensual, something which translates well over the ages.