Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.
— Toru Takemitsu
I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next, a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter.
— Tony Judt
You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never.
— Tony Dungy
What happened is, when I was doing 'Taxi,' the last year, we did this thing where we had on top hats and tails, and we pretended to tap-dance. And I said to myself, 'You know, I always wanted to know how to do this.' So I got myself a teacher, and I started studying, and I got hooked.
— Tony Danza
When I left school - or, rather, when I was expelled from school for hitting a kid who had disrespected a teacher - I had nothing, with nowhere to go. Where I'm from, it really means that. Now my family are millionaires. I never dreamed this would be possible.
— Tony Bellew
There are ways we can go do a better job of educating young moms and dads about the vital role they have as the child's first teacher. I think there are ways in which we can partner with local school districts and states to do a better job to provide nutrition options at school.
— Tom Vilsack
My mum was a music teacher. I've got three sisters, and we all played instruments when we were kids.
— Tom Ellis
I was introduced to theater by a teacher that found me when I was in elementary school. She tested me for the Gifted and Talented program, started taking me to see the 'Nutcracker Ballet.' I got involved.
— Todrick Hall
I think good actors are born with a kind of native gift. When you study too much with an acting teacher, that gets taken away. You lose your sense of spontaneity.
— Titus Welliver
We have a perception problem with the party. We are perceived as being a coastal elite, Ivy League party that does not connect to working-class people. The waitress, the teacher, the construction worker - we've lost our connection to them.
— Tim Ryan
During my childhood, my father, a Southern Baptist minister, and my mother, a teacher, made sure I took educational trips to cities such as Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Va., Philadelphia, and Boston to learn about America's history.
— Tim Griffin
There've been times I felt like, 'I don't know if I want to do this.' That maybe I should go back to school and become a special-education teacher. But I love entertaining.
— Tiffany Haddish
History is Philosophy teaching by example.
— Thucydides
In eighth grade, when I was just the school weirdo, my drama teacher put me in a play, and we came up with a few comedy bits. And that very first reaction, for an audience of supportive middle schoolers, I put my head out and pretended I got scared by the audience, and ducked back in. They all went: 'Yeah! That's great!'
— Thomas Middleditch
What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
— Thomas Carlyle
It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!
— Thom Gunn
I was useless in the classroom; I would spend my time looking out of the window after the first 10 minutes. But when you do an apprenticeship, you don't have to wait for the teacher to tell you when it's time to start, because you are on the shop floor learning for real.
— Theo Paphitis
I could never have a better teacher in those days than my father.
— Tony Visconti
A lot of my activity in the theatre, and even in writing poems, was a kind of retrospective aggro on the English teacher who wouldn't allow me to read poetry aloud.
— Tony Harrison
I could never have pictured myself writing a book when I was 25 years old. My mom was an English teacher but I wasn't that way growing up.
I always wanted to be a teacher. I went to school to be a teacher. And I've always, you know, had this sort of romantic idea about it. But I'm worried about - I'm worried about education.
I grew up in a predominantly white community - Hinsdale, Illinois - and given that, I feel blessed because I could still count my experiences with blatant racism on two hands. I thought racism was the substitute teacher picking on you because she assumes that you're a delinquent, and she doesn't know you have the highest score in the class.
— Tomi Adeyemi
When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.
— Tom Perrotta
Evil can be a teacher, if you look at the wisdom of its negative power.
— Tom Brown, Jr.
I was chubby in high school. I used to go to my information technology class, and I would type really fast to get the lesson done quick because the teacher had a little acoustic guitar, and there was a girl I had a crush on in the class. I would take the guitar and pretend to be some great singer-songwriter, serenade her with joke songs.
— Tobias Jesso, Jr.
Being superintendent or the superintendent's chief of staff is important work, but there's no chance it's as difficult as being a teacher, and I hesitate to say that it's as important.
— Timothy Noah
If you told me when I was a teen that I would end up being a teacher, I would have said you're out of your mind, because quite frankly I hated school.
— Tim Gunn
I failed eighth grade twice, and then they moved me up to ninth grade. Then I failed that and dropped out. My teacher would hand me a test, and I'd grade it myself with an F, then put my head down on the desk.
— Tig Notaro
None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots.
— Thurgood Marshall
When you home study, you get a better education. I basically got to teach myself. Being naturally able to make my own opinions about the schoolwork I had to deal with, instead of being instructed under the tutelage of the teacher, was really nice academically.
— Thora Birch
There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let's stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.
— Thomas Friedman
We don't classify all doctors as incompetent because of the infrequent instances of medical malpractice. We don't use the example of one bad teacher in our children's school to draw a negative conclusion of the entire teaching profession. We should apply that same rational standard when it comes to how we view law enforcement.
— Thom Tillis
I remember when I was at Brandeis, Geoffrey Wolff, he was a great fiction-writing teacher. He was the writer-in-residence, and for those of us who wanted to be writers, you were so excited to be in the same hallway as him.
— Theresa Rebeck
I liked science very much. A science teacher in high school inspired me, and because of him, I began studying science at the university. But when I got there... well, the subject still attracted me a lot, but I had to do all these exams, and it was just like working in an office. I couldn't stand that.
— Theo Jansen
My father drove a truck, and my mother was a school teacher. They wanted their children to go the traditional route: get good grades, go to college, get a job.
— Tony Rock
My dad, who was a teacher, used to tell me that a teacher's goal should be for every one of their students to get an A. If that's your goal every day - to make every student or player learn - then it doesn't matter if you won last year or didn't win. When next year's team shows up, I try to help every player become as good as they can be.
My fifth grade teacher Mr. Straussberger noticed I was having trouble with some of my book reports, but he knew I loved to draw. He gave me extra credit if I did a drawing from the book that I was reading.
— Tony DiTerlizzi
I see myself as an old man and an unqualified teacher to the nation. I think being a teacher is probably the most important thing you can be in politics.
— Tony Benn
I did tap dancing and stuff like that at drama school. I did ballet as well. My dance teacher and I didn't necessarily get along all that well sometimes. She's brilliant... but it's just because I don't like wearing tights that I put up a bit of a fight there, I think.
— Tom Weston-Jones
I can't explain something I saw on holiday on Holy Island when I was about nine years old, but do you know what, it could have been my PE teacher dressed in a monk's habit. I have no idea. I'm not a ghost person... it doesn't mean there aren't unexplained things; I just don't think they're ghosts.
— Tom Goodman-Hill
My mum is a primary school teacher and my dad is a music teacher and I've got loads of brothers and sisters.
— Tom Bateman
My first teacher... was extremely strict, mean, and deeply religious.
— Tobias Forge
Being a teacher is back-breakingly difficult work. It is also extremely important work.
I had this wonderful career and thought I would retire as a teacher.
Every teacher that I've ever had, that I still remember their name, made me laugh. I feel like comedy is the best instrument to teach.
My high school teacher, Reggie Andrews, was a huge factor in my learning my instrument. He didn't play bass, but it was the part where he gave me a knowledgeable perspective of what it was that I was doing.
— Thundercat
A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.
— Thomas Szasz
There's no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student's achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here's what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children's education can also make a huge difference in a student's achievement.
My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand.
When I was 10 years old, my teacher got us to imagine our future. I drew a timeline of the rest of my life. I had just started playing football, so I drew pictures of me as a professional footballer.
— Theo Walcott
