James A. Michener Quotes

My father, Emil Palade, was professor of philosophy, and my mother, Constanta Cantemir-Palade, was a teacher. The family environment explains why I acquired early in life great respect for books, scholars and education.

The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.

We weren't dirt poor, but there was no spare money kicking around. While it was very much understood that the way to a better life was through education, books were a luxury we couldn't afford. But when I was six, we actually moved opposite the central library, and that became my home from home.

I couldn't help but to think back to my classmates at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. They had the same talent, the same brains, the same dreams as the folks we sat with at Stanford and Harvard. I realized the difference wasn't one of intelligence or drive. The difference was opportunity.

A solitary child growing up in Africa, you're really quite dependent on books.

My family supported me. I wasn't hot-housed at all as a young child; I didn't go to any kind of gifted school. They didn't exist in the very poor parts of England when I grew up in the 1980s. I had a great time to learn, had access to libraries and teachers who were patient and enthusiastic when I showed ability in some subjects.

The only way to beat poverty in America is to completely transform American public education

I know what the teachers got. I know what the politicians got. But I don’t know what the kids got/

I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with a lot of opportunities that many people don't have.

I can't imagine my life without books. My father was an electrical engineer, and my mother was a public school teacher. Books were an integral part of my childhood.

I'm very lucky I went to a nice school and I live in a very lovely part of London.

What I am today, is from Houston and my friends, my closest friends, we all went to high school together.

Growing up in Middlesbrough I was taught to be resilient and competitive. My teachers made us believe that just because kids were at private school up the road, it didn't mean they were better than us.

A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them! Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it.

Books have always been important to me - my mom was a first grade teacher, so I grew up reading all the time.

We were raised to believe in books, music, and nature.

I began to realize that poverty was really more of a choice than anything else and that I could change that. And it just really depended on how hard I wanted to work.

The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you.

There is desperate education inequality in America, and I think every kid deserves a good teacher and a good school regardless of the ZIP code that he or she lives in.

It is worthwhile to engage in something that is close to one's heart. I had a scholarship. So if I donate money to give brilliant Chinese students an opportunity to study abroad, then this embodies everything I believe in: education, globalization, social mobility. I am an example of social mobility.

There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can't even afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business. We all know you don't get successful just by having a good idea or working hard. You get successful by being lucky too. If I had to support my family growing up, instead of having the time to learn how to code. If I didn't know that I was gonna be fine if Facebook didn't work out, then I wouldn't be standing up here today. And if we're honest, we all know how much luck we've had.

I enjoyed learning the poems, but I didn't understand of what use they might possibly be. ‘They'll keep you company on the day you have no books to read,' my teacher said.

My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals positively transforming their lives and the world around them. Educating is a vocation rooted in hopefulness. As teachers we believe that learning is possible, that nothing can keep an open mind from seeking after knowledge and finding a way to know.

Every good teaching may still end up producing evil bandits who have no principles whatsoever, an outcome even more likely when the teacher is also a bandit.

I am the son of an illiterate father and mother.