Etgar Keret Quotes

Like most of the other teachers, I'd done a bit of teaching and we all think we're great at what we do, but you realize that normally you have an audience who are all onside, who all want to listen.

I don't teach anymore, but I can still clearly see fifth period after lunch - that's a real tough time to teach. And I tried to imagine writing a story that would appeal to those kids - even when they're tired, even when they're bouncing off the walls.

[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students).

I like making films about different cultures. I'm interested in things that I've never encountered before. I try to put myself in the audience's position.

Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings.

Student teaching is the hardest job there is.

Everybody learns from traveling. I think we all do.

Some Indians will come up and say that a story reminded them of something very specific to their experience. Which may or may not be the case for non-Indians.

I taught high school students Spanish.

When I went to America, I spoke so much about who I was and gave so much away in a confessional, Irish, story-telling way that I suddenly realised I had given up a lot of myself. I had to shut up.

Readers anticipate that a significant element of every story will be additional exposure to the ways of the Ojibwe. The truth is that I enjoy this aspect of the work. Although I have no Indian blood running through my veins, in college I prepared to be a cultural anthropologist, so exploring other cultures is exciting to me.

I never think my music isn't easy until I got to teach it to other people.

Usually when I read something, first of all I'm looking for the story and then when I reread it, I'm sort of checking every part of it to see if every scene is necessary.

We speak about understanding each other, having those conversations nationwide - culturally, historically - and yet there's a lot of gaps. So I want to assist with closing the gap of knowing about and hearing about our Latino communities in terms of literature, in terms of writing.

I have found, writing a blog, that being non-opaque is necessary. You pretty much have to say what you know in much more firm terms or risk that the legions who always know more than you do will tell the story better.

Teaching was my first job after leaving university. It was a challenge, but I enjoyed it. Some of the kids were disruptive, but I could deal with it because I was only 24 at the time, and my own school memories were still fresh.

With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you've fallen into good hands - someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.

When you write a book, you're an expert, and people look at you in a different way.

Before Juilliard, I was a schoolteacher for a little bit. I taught in a charter school. I was a substitute teacher for kids ages 3 to 6.

It's time for storytellers to tell the stories that have not had the privilege of being shown to the world, and the audience will be there.

There's lots of bad things about teaching, but the really good thing is that you get to be around young people - irritating as they are.

I'm used to teaching classes in the dark.

In childhood, we used to read stories from the Arabian Nights. Why were we so interested when it happened somewhere in Arabia, in a different culture? Until now, we hadn't gone to the Hindi audience with a good story.

After I finished my degree in India in 1980, I came to the U.S. to get a master's, and I was teaching quantum physics to freshmen. As I got my bearings as to what goes on in labs, I understood that to teach, you have to learn.

If we are to prosper together in our increasingly small world, we must listen to -- and learn from each other's stories