Teacher Man Quotes
"In Eisenhower’s America there is prosperity but it does not trickle down to schools, especially to new teachers who need supplies for their classes."
"It’s a mistake to arrive early, gives you too much time to think of what you’re facing."
"Life is meaningless. All adults are phonies. What’s the use of living at all?"
"If Miss Boyd got laid regular she wouldn’t give so much homework."
"You worked with your body and your brain had a day off."
"I ate the sandwich. It was my first act of classroom management."
"I didn’t call myself anything. I was more than a teacher. And less."
"In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw."
"You’re lucky to be alive, kid, so take your lumps and go home. Think about it."
"I said I could handle any fat slob and Eddie told me cut it out."
"He said, Dominic’s not the boss around here."
"Eddie was the kind of man you’d like to have for a father."
"They’re waiting. What are we doing today, teacher?"
"The bell rang. They left and I erased from the board "John went to the store.""
"I went to school in a state of terror. You hated it and dreamed of being fourteen and getting a job."
"Facing dozens of teenagers every day brings you down to earth."
"You entertain them with stories of your miserable childhood."
"I have to show who’s in charge in this classroom."
"That’s what I wanted to do. Should I have told Sal I was not a two-by-four-wielding lout?"
"I thought I’d like to be a tough no-nonsense English teacher, stern and scholarly."
"He said he’d show youse kids. Youse don’t lissena the teacher youse don’t graduate."
"I’m off to New York Community College in Brooklyn."
"I chose Gogarty because of my admiration for him."
"You have to tell the truth or you’ll be found out."
"I could have been one of them, working by day, studying by night."
"The Oh means they have no notion of what I am talking about."
"Capital punishment is the execution of people by hanging, electrocution, gassing, shooting or garroting."
"Vivian from Haiti raises her hand. That’s wrong, that executing, but I think it’s OK for the other thing, the one about the babies, Oh, yeah, the abortion. They should be shot."
"Their faces are blank. They don’t understand."
"The class would agree with Miller. They’d nod and say, Yeah, yeah. They think they’re nobody."
"I told them, You have a right to think for yourselves."
"It’s easy for professors to give all these assignments but, man, there’s another world out there and God only put twenty-four hours in the day."
"I wanted to be the Great Liberating Teacher, to raise them from their knees after days of drudgery in offices and factories, to help them cast off their shackles, to lead them to the mountaintop, to breathe the air of freedom."
"They work days and nights. They come to class. They sit and listen. They do their best."
"You had to make up your own mind, and if you didn’t return, it meant you were sicker than ever."
"Why these terminal dates? In 1889 William Butler Yeats published his first book of poetry and in 1911, in Philadelphia, Abbey Theater actors were pelted with various objects after a performance of The Playboy of the Western World."
"Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone and they will come home, wagging their tails behind them."
"Why fear the criticism of others when you, yourself, are first out of the critical gate?"
"Every time you open your mouth you detract from the sum total of human wisdom."
"They force you into truth. Even if they lie to themselves and the world they look for honesty in the teacher."