Jefferson also founded the first intentionally secularized university in America. His vision for the University of Virginia was for education finally free from traditional Christian dogma. He had a disdain for the influence that institutional Christi...
It's maybe hard to believe, but as a kid I really had a lot of self-doubts. My father was very ill - he was an alcoholic - so there were a lot of things that built up for me. And because I was going to a Catholic school in a small German town, a lot ...
I went to film school so I have a writing and directing background, and I think a lot of the material I'm interested in writing and getting out there is stories about anti-heroes and people you should just not ordinarily root for - trying to figure o...
Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and sta...
I created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation back in 1997 for the purpose of going in and improving the living conditions of my people on the African continent, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I came from. Out first mission was to go...
For reasons that are both fair and foul - but mostly for fair reasons - we have come under the domain of a scientific-management system whose ambitions are endless. They want to manage every second of our lives, every expenditure that we make. And th...
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.
I emphasize teachers because they are largely left out of the debate. None of the bombastic reports that come from Washington and think tanks telling us what needs to be 'fixed' - I hate such a mechanistic word, as if our schools were automobile engi...
In a very weak economy, when you say 'cut government spending,' what you mean is you're laying off school teachers and you're de-funding various programs that put money into the economy. This means you have more unemployed people that then draw unemp...
When I got large enough to go to work, while employed I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination; and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school-children were getting their lessons, I w...
I have three younger siblings, so the four of us were outside all the time after school playing games, making up games. My sister made up a game called 'roof ball.' We'd play that constantly. She always beat me in it, and it made me very mad. But we ...
You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person: your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion, sitting next t...
My grandmother taught me how to read, very early, but she taught me to read just the way she taught herself how to read - she read words rather than syllables. And as a result of that, when I entered school, it took me a long time to learn how to wri...
When I was teaching Latin in girls' schools before I became a writer, I didn't much like it if parents would come in and say, 'We'll have less of the Ovid and Virgil and more of the grammar, please.' After all, I was the one in charge. That's how I f...
The truth of why I used to listen to Arrested Development on my Walkman was because if I didn't, it would take me 20 minutes to walk to school. If I did, it took me 15. That's the reason I loved it. I just had more of a kick in my step, more of a bou...
Jedediah Leland: Bernstein, am I a stuffed shirt? Am I a horse-faced hypocrite? Am I a New England school marm? Mr. Bernstein: Yes. If you thought I'd answer you any differently than what Mr. Kane tells you...
[Nemo and Marlin are heading off to Nemo's first day of school, they stop at a busy traffic street] Marlin: Wait, wait... [Red fish darts out and uses its color as a stop light, Nemo and Marlin cross] Marlin: Hold my fin, hold my fin!
Nemo Nobody aged 118: At my age the candles cost more than the cake. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid I haven't been alive enough. It should be written on every school room blackboard: Life is a playground - or nothing.
Lou Bloom: You see, Rick, they've done studies, and they found that in any system that relies on cooperation, from a school of fish or say even a professional hockey team for example, these experts have identified communication as the number one sing...
Detective Susan Avery: Mr. Mill, have you been going to detective school? Griffin Mill: No, actually, we're doing a... a movie right now, called Lonely Room, and Scott Glenn plays a detective much like yourself. Detective Susan Avery: Is he a black w...
Skip: I'll see you at school, Mary Sue. [Jennifer smiles as Skip drives away] Jennifer: Who's that? David: Skip Martin, captain of the basketball team. Jennifer: Does he like me? David: As a matter of fact, he does. [Jennifer's smile turns slightly l...
