96 quotes found
American writer · American
Irish-American writer
“Teaching is bringing the news.”
“After a full belly all is poetry.”
“I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching.”
“Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.”
“Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.”
“I know that big people don't like questions from children. They can ask all the questions they like, How's school? Are you a good boy? Did you say your prayers? but if you ask them did they say the...”
“You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”
“Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You'll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I'm still learning what it is about the past t...”
“Your mind is a treasure house that you should stock well and its the one part of you the world cant interfere with.”
“They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in the snow they'd be lost forever.”
“The master says its a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says its a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if theres anyone in the world who would like us to live.”
“To enter a room is to move from one environment to another and that, for the teenager, can be traumatic. There be dragons, daily horrors from acne to zit.”
“You can't teach in a vacuum. A good teacher relates the material to real life. You understand that, don't you?”
“Nobody ever told them they had a right to an opinion.”
“Everything in my head was secondhand, too: Catholicism; Ireland's sad history, a litany of suffering and martyrdom drummed into me by priests, schoolmasters and parents who knew no better.”
“There's something hostile about the way they enter and leave the room that tells you what they think of you. It could be your imagination and you try to figure out what will bring them over to your...”
“First day of your teaching you are to stand at your classroom door and let your students know how happy you are to see them. Stand, I say. Any playwright will tell you that when the actor sits down...”
“When I act tough they listen politely till the spasm passes. They know.”
“There's nothing sillier in the world than a teacher telling you don't do it after you already did it.”
“You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish...”
“I felt so happy I could barely stay in my skin”
