“Ask yourself: 'Do I feel the need to laminate?' Then teaching is for you.”

“An instructor should exemplify the things he seeks to teach. It will be of great advantage if you yourself can do all you ask of your students and more.”

“Do your best. That's all you can ask of yourself. If you did your best and things just didn't work out, you don't owe an apology to anyone. And you certainly don't need to feel 'bad' about it -- or, worse yet, guilty.”

“If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know things that others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.”

“You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.”

“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.”

“If you rob someone who would help you if you needed help you only rob yourself. […] Do you imagine you can be cruel without teaching others to be cruel to you?”

“I didn’t realize that in truth what makes you a good teacher is really living your own practice, and living it so much that you request it to other people. Ultimately, everything you do that you teach someone else is something that you’re working through to teach yourself, and that practice of really digging within yourself, it feels like having your soul cracked open.”

“Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?”

“You fixed yourself. You didn’t need me.”

“No, Sydney.” My voice was ragged. “I do need you. You have no idea how much I need you.”