The art of good teaching begins when we can answer the questions our students are really trying to ask us, if only they knew how to do so.

Good schools, like good societies and good families, celebrate and cherish diversity.

A passion for learning...isn't something you have to inspire with; it's something you have to keep from extinguishing.

It's the curiosity that drives me. It's making a difference in the world that prevents me from ever giving up.

Only secretly rebellious teachers have ever done right by our least advantaged kids.

Teaching is listening, learning is talking

If you ask me, taking on risk and being more daring is a real important part of creativity.

Teaching is mostly listening, and learning is mostly telling.

The most dangerous guy at my school-the lone person who makes me feel safe-is reveling in the way I am touching him.

Something is significantly wrong with the creature that sacrifices its children's lives in order to settle its differences.

I'm the master of distractions. A couple of hand gestures and BAM! I'll pull the underwear clean off your butt.

Actually, bizarrely, in America, I get more appreciation from the odd, unusual stuff I've done, almost because I'm not, if you like, famous in America as I am in England.

My mother once told me I was like water. Water can carve its way even through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.

It's always fun when you're doing the CGI stuff, to actually get to work with someone who is real, who's there.

An editorial writer might consult a reporter to see what she thinks, if it is what she covers. But they are entirely independent.

There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn't know what his contemporaries are.

Any fear of aging, I think, is simply vanity.

I befriend people too quickly - I don't think that's wrong, but I get told that I should be a bit more careful.