I am bourgeois to the core and parochial beyond belief, and yet I am drawn to art and scholarship as read more

I am bourgeois to the core and parochial beyond belief, and yet I am drawn to art and scholarship as my anti-type, my shadow, the voice of distinction I never possessed. I don't think of myself as a teacher so much as an impersonator of profundities, inhabiting the wisdom of texts with the naked confidence that the value of the genius I espouse transcends the particular fraud that I am the one espousing it. And it doesn't even matter to me that no one seems to be listening; those who listen that I don't know about are enough to keep me going--soaring on the wings of borrowed metaphors.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to read more

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain
called "Huckleberry Finn."

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain
called "Huckleberry Finn."

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.

A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

First he wrought, and afterward he taught.

First he wrought, and afterward he taught.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a losttradition.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a losttradition.