Sandra Cisneros Quotes

I think all of us could play the teacher because we all grew up with teachers. It's just kind of this peeking-over-the-shoulder presence that we've all grown up knowing.

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence .

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.

For me, being a good creative writing teacher is actually kind of being a good therapist. The line is very porous - you can also be a creepy guru/abusive therapist, too, so you have to be very careful. But it feels really important to me.

Other than my parents, no one had a bigger influence on my life than Coach Smith. He was more than a coach – he was my mentor, my teacher, my second father. Coach was always there for me whenever I needed him and I loved him for it. In teaching me the game of basketball, he taught me about life. My heart goes out to Linnea and their kids. We've lost a great man who had an incredible impact on his players, his staff and the entire UNC family.

You say that I should be your teacher! See to it that I am your pinion and not your brake.

Reading a book by someone you respect allows some of their brilliance to rub off on you.

I would ask the people who were generous toward my own work. After class one day a poetry professor said to me, "Hey, there's this guy Basho you would find interesting," and so I found Basho. A fiction teacher told me, "You ought to read Clarice Lispector if you're interested in that sort of in-between stuff," and then Lispector appeared. It's not magic. You just keep your eyes open.

I know that people look at my life and ask, "How can I achieve some of those things?" So, I suppose in that sense, yes, I'm a role model. But I try to think of myself more as a mentor, as somebody who I hope young people feel comfortable approaching or writing to.

Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.

If you just do something, then you're a five-year wonder and, goodbye, you're gone. But if people feel it's worthwhile, not only do they copy but they want to learn how to do it To me, that's what it's all about. If someone were to ask me, 'What's the number one thing, in essence, that you left behind?' It was the teaching of others so that they could take my work and take it further.

The rank of office is not what makes someone a leader. Leadership is the choice to serve others with or without any formal rank.

My life has been transformed by great teachers all the way.

The teacher left her wisdom, in the minds of lots of children, and did her best to give them all a better start.

We cannot lead anyone farther than we have been ourselves.

For eager teachers seized my youth, pruned my faith and trimmed my fire. Showed me the high, white star of truth, there bade me gaze and there aspire.

...those of us who write for children are called, not to do something to a child, but be someone for a child.

I get letters from kids from all over the country. I always try to answer them because there were people I looked up to in my youth and just wanted to be in contact with. It's also important to realize that you find your role models in a lot of different places. I've never believed that your role models have to look like you. You can find them in all sort of colors, shapes and sizes.

I wanted to be a poet. I had a really romantic idea about what that would mean. My parents knew some poets, and I liked how they dressed and acted, but I didn't really acknowledge that I only liked reading some bits of poetry while I was peeing or something.

Joe Wright was almost like a teacher, to be firm with me, that really stuck with me. And that helped me as I've gotten older.

The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.

[To become a poet] The most important thing is to pay attention. The next would probably be to read; it's so important to pay attention. It keeps you from being bored, and I might add it keeps you from being boorish.

Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.

My grandmother was an English teacher for a while. And she stressed to me the importance of reading, being able to articulate well.

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