Nathan McClallen

“If such as Thomas a Kempis and Bernard of Clairvaux are generous providers of the occasion of education, rather than reciters of precepts and beliefs, it is because they are seeking to be virtuous and to compose their own lives, rather than worrying that others might be vicious, leading discordant lives. Such teachers do the best that a teacher can do. In their own deliberations, they cast enough light that I may see something by it, if I happen to be looking.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire

“When I fume in the tollbooth line, I am not a good person to whom a bad thing is happening. I am a liar who is getting what he deserves.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire

“I have to confess that, in the years I have spent as a schoolteacher, I have learned much more from my students than they have from me. While that will surely sound like a feigned humility, it isn't feigned, and it isn't humility either.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire

“When the power of saying is small, the power of thinking is small.”
― Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire