When you are studying jazz the best thing to do is listen to records or listen to live music. It isn't as though you go to a teacher. You just listen as much as you can and absorb everything.

I'm sure any vocal teacher that listens to me would rather cut my throat than do anything - I do everything all wrong - but I think for me that's the best - because I don't think I have a voice so I think what I project would be style - if I learned to sing I'd lose my style.

I had a great drama teacher and he sort of made out drama school as this incredibly difficult thing to get into: 6 000 people apply every year and some of the schools only have 12 places. It's a phenomenally difficult thing to get into. And that excited me - I wanted that challenge.

I don't have a lot of skills but one thing I can do is I can compartmentalize. I can make that a little world that I can go back to so I can be a waitress or I can be a teacher and then go and work on my book.

When my opera Plump Jack was performed in 1989 my first piano teacher sent me something that I'd composed when I was four. I remember I played it and it still sounded like me. I'm the same composer I was then.

The processes of teaching the child that everything cannot be as he wills it are apt to be painful both to him and to his teacher.

I wanted to be an English teacher. I wanted to do it for the corduroy jackets with patches on the side. When I got to college as I was walking across campus one day I ripped off a little flyer for this sketch-comedy group. It ended up being one of the greatest things I've ever done.

I first decided to become an actor at school. A teacher gave us a play to do and that had a major impact. At first I wanted to work in the theatre but there was something about the ambience of film especially American films that always attracted me.

The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher.

Then I heard this genius teacher Stella Adler - I recommend you read anything you might find about her and if you have anyone interested in theatre you get them one of her books.

For one thing I teach my students what my teacher for twenty years Paul Gavert told me 'The voice follows... the voice follows everything about you... who you are.'

I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.

I was very studious too much. I would never go out at weekends. I was very serious. You should have seen me in class - I was blushing and sweating every time the teacher asked me something.

Find a good teacher as I found for my sons. I feel the worst thing you can do is to try and teach your own children yourself because there is a natural rebellion that occurs.

I had a really creative teacher at primary school. He used to get us doing things such as singing Spandau Ballet in drag in the choir and I remember loving it.

One of the most extraordinary things about being a spiritual teacher is the rare privilege of being able to look deeply into the very souls of many human beings at the same time.

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young and my father didn't approve of it so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress my mother was very supportive. She always said to me 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'

Children are already accustomed to a world that moves faster and is more exciting than anything a teacher in front of a classroom can do.

As a teacher you are more or less obliged to pay the same amount of attention to everything. That can wear you down.

I went to a Catholic high school and it seemed like every time I drew something for a class project it either got thrown away by the teacher or something.

In my teens I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar.

I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought 'Well if acting doesn't work for him he can always become a history teacher or something.' Fortunately the acting worked out.

My younger sister had kids before I did and managed to earn a master's degree while raising them as a single parent. Now she's a brilliant second-grade teacher. I'm in awe of her ability to juggle everything and still be a great mother.

From a very early age my wife and I told our son that there are times and places for everything. I told him look when you're in class you have to be quiet and listen to your teacher but when you go out to the playground you can scream and be silly.