Quote

A good teacher, after all, wields the authority of a parent with none of the psychological baggage. The best of them are semi-mysterious figures whose wisdom seems boundless and whose approval helps us discover who we are.

Steve Almond

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Steve Almond
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: October 27
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
CA
Helping
Discover
Wields
Seems
None
Semi
Best
Figures
Baggage
Good
Authority
Boundless
Whose
Approval
Teacher
Psychological
Parent
Mysterious
Wisdom
Helps

More quotes by Steve Almond

Image
Most forms of rage, after all, are only sloppy cloaks for grief.
Steve Almond
Image
Why are people so fascinated by how to eat Valomilks?’ She said, ‘Well, Dad, they’re round and they’re messy. But that’s what makes them fun. Once we get older we’re not supposed to be messy anymore. But for one moment when you’re eating a Valomilk, it’s okay to be messy again.
Steve Almond
Image
I happen to love football so much and hate myself for loving it.
Steve Almond
Image
Just imagine what would happen if Obama grew a pair and in his last year in office just said, Forget it. Football is just too violent and too damaging to the economically vulnerable communities in this country. And it normalizes violence and fosters intolerance, etc. I mean: that would be awesome.
Steve Almond
Image
It is in these moments of tender and ridiculous nostalgia that I know something inside me is still broken.
Steve Almond
Image
All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick up a work of fiction.
Steve Almond
Image
Authors should be as involved with the marketing of their books as they want to be. No more, no less. I happen to recognized, quite early on, that no one was going to buy my book if I didn't do everything I could to let them know that the book existed.
Steve Almond
Image
There's something incredibly liberating about a holiday that encourages children to take candy from strangers
Steve Almond
Image
We need books...because we are all, in the private kingdoms of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend.
Steve Almond
Image
At the end of night, before you close your eyes, be content with what you've done and be proud of who you are.
Steve Almond
Image
Much as I love stories, I think I'll only be satisfied with myself as a writer if I'm able to produce a novel that feels publishable. The books that truly take me away - for weeks at a time - are all novels.
Steve Almond
Image
Misery loves another idiot with a jukebox where his soul should be.
Steve Almond
Image
Obama said, basically, I wouldn't let any son of mine play football, though I do watch. And that struck me as remarkable! It's like he's saying, yeah, let some other set of parents or guardians put their boys up for that kind of punishment (and for my amusement). But not mine! It's just abject hypocrisy from a guy who should know better.
Steve Almond
Image
The answer is that we don't choose our freaks, they choose us.
Steve Almond
Image
But something occurred to me as I sped through that dirty shroud of fog, something Vonnegut has been trying to explain to the rest of us for most of his life. And that is this: Despair is a form of hope. It is an acknowledgment of the distance between ourselves and our appointed happiness. At certain moments, it is reason enough to live.
Steve Almond
Image
I do think, as crazy as it sounds, that sports is an addiction and that it should be accorded some of the same supports as any other addiction.
Steve Almond
Image
Football offers us a sanitized spectacle of combat that has a clear resolution, which we need more and more today given our incoherent overseas wars.
Steve Almond
Image
You've got all these parents who are projecting their pathologies of fear onto their kids and those kids are understandably messed up. Tragedies happen and that you have to allow kids to experience their own fear and guilt and sorrow. It's the cover-up that really screws people over. Unfortunately, America specializes in cover-ups.
Steve Almond
Image
If you want to fight a cult, you've got to form a cult.
Steve Almond
Image
Football is Lotto for kids from economically vulnerable neighborhoods.
Steve Almond