Sometimes questions are more important than answers.

Sometimes questions are more important than answers.

My mother would say it is literally ghost writers
who come to me
(Tan is the author of what became read more

My mother would say it is literally ghost writers
who come to me
(Tan is the author of what became The Joy Luck Club).

But ask now the beasts, any they shall teach thee; and the fowls
of the air, and they shall read more

But ask now the beasts, any they shall teach thee; and the fowls
of the air, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes
of the sea shall declare unto thee.

To teach is to learn twice.

To teach is to learn twice.

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:
read more

Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.

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.