“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.”

“It is personal. That's what an education does. It makes the world personal.”

“But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.”

“What about that? It's John Brooks! It's John Brooks!”

“You're going to write straight and simple and good now. That's the start.'
'What if I'm not straight and simple and good? Do you think I can write that way?'
'Write how you are but make it straight.”

“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”

“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”

“No straight lines make up my life;
And all my roads have bends;
There's no clear-cut beginnings;
And so far no dead-ends.”

“Hey — guess what: You're the only creature with free will. How does that make you feel?”

“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”