Jill Telford

"I don't live to work. I work to live. Before I die I know I lived."

"Forget the American dream...whats your dream? The thing that keeps you up at night...the thing that makes you happy...the thing that keeps your spirit going. Do that thing. Don't label it a hobby or what you do in your spare time type of thing...label that thing you do the thing you love to do. The thing you were born to do. When you stop doing what you love you lose a huge part of yourself. Don't get lost."

"A poem a day keeps the doctor away."

"Education is not filling up a box but seeing what you can create with one and don't you ever forget that!"

"Start each day asking, "How do I want others to feel" Then act accordingly. xo"

"Create something. Create something ugly. Create something beautiful.  I don't care what it is. Create it. "

"Be simple. Be direct. Be clear. Don't worry about being correct. Worry about being real."

"Most often it is in heartache that we love more boldly."

"Be the kind of grown up you needed as a child."

"I work backwards with the ending in mind as I create art, stories, poems and books. Always in a process of becoming."

"An educator...a good one that is, inspires others to be even better than herself."

"It doesn't matter the materials but what you do and how you interact. Relationships are the most important in the art of teaching. A school can have the most beautiful "stuff" but it's the care and commitment of a teacher. What matters most is a true teacher with the real stuff inside and helping others discover that real stuff inside themselves."

"They say you can tell a lot about a country by the way it treats its prisoners…I believe the same can be said for how a country treats its children"