I felt a hand on my back, movement behind me, my guys making room, someone squeezing into our circle, and then one last hand joined the pile: my Korean aide. I guess it made sense. We were her real family. The closest thing she’d ever had to a real family, at least. All year she said maybe five words a day. 'Now kick some ass,' she said.

— Tucker Elliot

I felt like I should salute. If only I knew how.

— Tucker Elliot

I felt so much pride, so much love. You get a handful of days like this in a lifetime. Take in every minute. They’ll be over soon enough, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

— Tucker Elliot

If I can be perfectly blunt, his humanities' teacher was an ass.

— Tucker Elliot

I have this thought, it’s horrible, and it makes me sick, but it’s true: one day these students will grow up and have their own kids, and they’re going to name them for men and women who will die in this war.

— Tucker Elliot

I knew a teacher that kept a calendar on his desk. He didn’t use it for lesson planning though. Instead, he was marking time until summer. That’s what prisoners do on walls. They mark the days until they go free. But if you’re marking time as a teacher, you aren’t redeeming the time with your students. A parent drops a child off at the beginning of the year, and it’s your job to redeem the time and educate that child. It’s your responsibility to see that child progress throughout the year. The child should be a better student as a result of being in your classroom. You are responsible—for successes and failures—and you have an obligation to students and parents to redeem every precious minute you’re given as an educator.

— Tucker Elliot

I’m clinging to one last thought: pain is the harbinger of hope. You have to be alive to feel pain. If you are alive, then you have purpose. If you have purpose, then you have hope.

— Tucker Elliot

I’m in my classroom, and I’m looking at this girl, but all I can see is my dad on the ground, in front of The Wall, telling the truth, finally—his knees drawn and his chest heaving—and when people pass by they look the other way, except for this one lady who stops to give my dad a hug. She gets down on her knees to reach him, and now she’s crying with a stranger, and without asking I know it’s because she’s lost something, too, and I wonder if in comforting my dad she thinks she can find it again. Probably not. It doesn’t work that way.

— Tucker Elliot

I’m not sure if I ever met an American teacher in Korea that hadn’t volunteered at an orphanage at least once—even our resident idiot could be surprisingly decent on occasion—but I’ve also visited foreign countries where children are taught hatred. I’ve seen it up close and personal. It’s antithetical to everything I believe in as a teacher. The mandate for all teachers is to instill hope, not fear and hatred.

— Tucker Elliot

I’m sure the driver was a great guy and all he wanted was to drive me to my hotel—but he was a complete stranger to me and the truth is that being vigilant isn’t a part-time job, it’s not about being nice to people, it’s about reality. I made a terrible mistake once, believing the monsters that want to hurt us are easily labeled and identified, rather than walking and hiding amongst us. That’s my reality.

— Tucker Elliot