“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?”

“Teaching is bringing the news.”

“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...”

“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.”

“It is easier to write a book with footnotes than the same book written so that children can understand it.”

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”