John Horne Burns, Lucifer with a Book

"He knew instinctively the cardinal function of a teacher – which is a stout lever to raw mass."

"Education, boy, is not something to prepare you for life. That is a vulgar American error.… It's something to take you out of life."

"She saw why teachers get very old and stay very young. For there is no closer probing of the mind--not even in psychoanalysis."