Graduating Class Quotes

You have to be really tenacious. You have to keep at it. There are many roads to get there. If you can get yourself into Harvard, that's a good way to go, because every Harvard graduating class, the agencies come trolling around and they'll look for you. So if you go to Harvard, you'll get found there. ~ Louis C.K.

Pretty was hardly the word. With her fierce curled lips, black eyes and clean angry bones she must have stood out in her graduating class like a chicken hawk in a flock of pullets. ~ Ross Macdonald

In a now famous commencement speech at Stanford University, Steve Jobs urged the graduating class to "stay hungry. Stay foolish." Never let go of your appetite to go after new ideas, new experiences, and new adventures. Compete with yourself, not with others. Judge yourself on what is your personal best and you'll accomplish more than you could ever have imagined. Life stops for no one, so keep moving. Stay awake and stay alive. ~ Sophia Amoruso

I went to a public high school that had a very small graduating class of 156 students. I lived a relatively normal childhood until I turned probably around 16. Things started to take off career-wise. ~ Jesse McCartney

I was made fun of in the Midwest - I was the only Asian in my graduating class of 200. Fortunately, I found my niche, and it was fine. But I wanted to be so white, you wouldn't believe it. I was like, 'I want to be white; I don't want to be this anymore.' But now I embrace it. ~ Reggie Lee

Nora Ephron explained in a 1996 commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College, about her own graduating class of 1962: "We weren't meant to have futures, we were meant to marry them. We weren't meant to have politics, or careers that mattered, or opinions or lives; we were meant to marry them. If you wanted to be an architect, you married an architect." Both ~ Rebecca Traister

Ron Hubbard was trying to get people out of their body with his HCA courses, but frankly, he was failing badly. When I was a staff member, occasions came up that I was asked to help some member of the graduating class to get a reality on out-of-body experiences ... Hubbard would never acknowledge this ability of mine, and after leaving him I did a lot of experimenting. ~ Paul Twitchell

Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address of the graduating class at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance. ~ William James

When my son David was a high school senior in 2003, his graduating class went on a camping trip in the desert. A creative writing educator visited the camp and led the group through an exercise designed to develop their sensitivity and imaginations. Each student was given a pen, a notebook, a candle, and matches. They were told to walk a short distance into the desert, sit down alone, and "discover themselves." The girls followed instructions. The boys, baffled by the assignment, gathered together, threw the notebooks into a pile, lit them with the matches, and made a little bonfire. ~ Christina Hoff Sommers

My high school wasn't a big public school; it was tiny. There were 36 girls in my graduating class. We were a big group of girls that by the time senior year came along couldn't wait to get away from school fast enough but we loved each other. It's really fun to see the girls at reunions now. ~ Cecily Von Ziegesar

By 1996 Nora Ephron was telling a graduating class at Wellesley, Don't underestimate how much antagonism there is toward women and how many people wish we could turn the clock back. ... Understand: every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you. ~ Rebecca Traister

There were only 75 people in my graduating class at the school I attended in Hannah, S.C. It was a small school and that translated into not a lot of opportunities when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, and a chorus one year, but nothing ever lasted. ~ Josh Turner

I don't think anybody in my graduating class would have figured that I would be doing full-on single-camera comedies or sitcoms, or anything like that, but it certainly has been a part of my career. ~ Brooke Nevin

When I came to the CIA in the mid-'90s, our graduating class of case officers was unbelievably low. Now, after years of rebuilding, our training programs and putting our best efforts to recruit the most talented men and women, we are graduating more clandestine officers than at any time in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency. ~ George Tenet

My grammar school graduating class in 1941 had a little party for 13 or 14 year-old kids. [Trumpeter] King Kolax's band played for the party and Gene Ammons was playing tenor saxophone with the band. And that's when I said, "That's it!" Just like that, tunnelvision ever since. ~ Johnny Griffin

She might be the best-dressed little girl in her elementary school class, but she was still a Greek. Her parents spoke a foreign language, their food was different, and she looked different from the children she went to school with in Corktown. ~ Suzanne Jenkins

The millions of vacationers who came here every year before Katrina were mostly unaware of this poverty. French Quarter tourists were rarely exposed to the reality beneath the Disneyland Gomorrah that is projected as 'N'Awlins,' a phrasing I have never heard a local use and a place, as far as I can tell, that I have never encountered despite my years in the city. The seemingly average, white, middle-class Americans whooped it up on Bourbon Street without any thought of the third-world lives of so many of the city's citizens that existed under their noses. The husband and wife, clad in khaki shorts, feather boa, and Mardi Gras beads well out of season, beheld a child tap-dancing on the street for money and clapped along to his beat without considering the obvious fact that this was an early school-day afternoon and that the child should be learning to read, not dancing for money. Somehow they did not see their own child beneath the dancer's black visage. Nor, perhaps, did they see the crumbling buildings where the city's poor live as they traveled by cab from the French Quarter to Commander's Palace. They were on vacation and this was not their problem. ~ Billy Sothern

Politicians and bureaucrats are the new upper class in Norway. It is an upper class that is growing by an increasing number of top-paid politicians in municipalities and counties. They let the people suffer, but let themselves go free. ~ Carl I. Hagen

First thing Monday morning, Ruby came in. She seemed upset. "Zach, I've had a vision," she said immediately.
"Was it a dream," Angelo began suddenly, with a wicked grin on his face, "where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"
Ruby and I both gaped at him. "Of course not," Ruby said with disgust, "Why would you even ask something like that?"
"Just wonderin'." He was facing her, But he held up a DVD case, facing me. 'Real Genius'. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
Ruby shook her head at him and then turned back to me. "There was a bird. It tried to land in your hands, but a giant horse scared it away."
As usual when Ruby announced her visions, I had no idea how to respond. I just smiled. "That's fascinating."
She nodded sagely. "I hope you're nat planning any horse riding this weekend."
Before I could answer, Nero Sensei burst through the doo, breathless. "Do any of you own the blue convertible parked at Jeremy's?"
Which meant another kid had pucked off the balcony.
"Hope the top wasn't down," Angelo said lightly.
Sensei shook his head as he headed back out the door. "No, but it's a soft top, and Tim had cranberry juice before class. It's gonna stain."
Ruby followed Nero out the door. Angelo turned to me. His eyes were sparkling and he was grinning from ear to ear. "Best job I ever had," he said. and I had to s ~ Marie Sexton

Every time I asked a question, that magnificent teacher, instead of giving the answer, showed me how to find it. She taught me to organise my thoughts, to do research, to read and listen, to seek alternatives, to resolve old problems with new solutions, to argue logically. Above all, she taught me not to believe anything blindly, to doubt, and to question even what seemed irrefutably true, such as man's superiority over woman, or one race or social class over another. ~ Isabel Allende

To a Soviet person, used to the nationality policy of the USSR, all the mistakes of the American government's Indian policy are evident from the first glance. The mistakes are, of course, intentional. The fact of the matter is that in Indian schools, class is conducted exclusively in English. There is no written form of any Indian language at all. It's true that every Indian tribe has its own language, but this doesn't change anything. If there were any desire to do so, the many American specialists who have fallen in love with Indian culture could create Indian written languages in a short time. But imperialism remains imperialism. ~ Ilya Ilf

I have a theory that musicians recognize each other and if they are destined to collaborate together they will. Mainly, they recognize each other according to the class they belong to. If they are punk-rocker kids from the neighborhood, they are going form a band. If they happen to be musicians that are going to play in pubs and restaurants, they are going to recognize each other, form a band and play together. If it's about musicians that are playing jazz and are going to jazz festivals, for e.g., then they are going to meet and work together. ~ Vlatko Stefanovski

Learning to sketch the nude human form is standard practice for a beginning drawing class," she said. "We always hire a nude model. Last season I did it myself." While he was adjusting to the horror of that, Lucille went on. ~ Jill Shalvis

There are things in American culture that want to wipe the class distinction. Blue jeans. Ready-made clothes. Coca-Cola. ~ Leslie Fiedler

My "Best Woman" speech
Good evening everyone, my name is Rosie and as you can see Alex has
decided to go down the non-traditional route of asking me to be his best
woman for the day. Except we all know that today that title does not belong
to me. It belongs to Sally, for she is clearly his best woman.
I could call myself the "best friend" but I think we all know that today
that title no longer refers to me either. That title too belongs to Sally.
But what doesn't belong to Sally is a lifetime of memories of Alex the
child, Alex the teenager, and Alex the almost-a-man that I'm sure he would
rather forget but that I will now fill you all in on. (Hopefully they all will
laugh.)
I have known Alex since he was five years old. I arrived on my first day
of school teary-eyed and red-nosed and a half an hour late. (I am almost sure
Alex will shout out "What's new?") I was ordered to sit down at the back of
the class beside a smelly, snotty-nosed, messy-haired little boy who had the
biggest sulk on his face and who refused to look at me or talk to me. I hated
this little boy.
I know that he hated me too, him kicking me in the shins under the table
and telling the teacher that I was copying his schoolwork was a telltale sign.
We sat beside each other every day for twelve years moaning about school,
moaning about girlfriends and boyfriends, wishing we were older and wiser and out of school ~ Cecelia Ahern

Today, amphibians enjoy the dubious distinction of being the world's most endangered class of animals; it's been calculated that the group's extinction rate could be as much as forty-five thousand times higher than the background rate. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

Ah, God, it was too sad and awful, the endless hide-and-go-seek game one played with the middle class.
If one could only be sure that one did not belong to it, that
one was finer, nobler, more aristocratic. The truth was, she
hated it shakily from above, not solidly from below, and her
proletarian sympathies constituted a sort of snub that she ad-
ministered to the middle class, just as a really smart woman will
outdress her friends by relentlessly underdressing them. Scratch
a socialist and you find a snob. The semantic test confirmed
this. In the Marxist language, your opponent was always a
"parvenu," an "upstart," an "adventurer," a politician was al-
ways "cheap," and an opportunist "vulgar." But the proletariat
did not talk in such terms; this was the tone of the F.F.V.
What the socialist movement did for a man was to allow him-
self the airs of a marquis without having either his title or his 
sanity questioned. ~ Mary McCarthy

Do you think Patrick Swayze now goes up behind people in pottery classes and hugs them just to crack up other ghosts? ~ Chris Hardwick

Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress. ~ Jacques Ellul

The fight still isn't people of colour versus white. It's the people versus the system built to keep us down. That's the first line of the Constitution. And the system is manmade but is made of no man. Everyone, regardless of class, creed, culture and ethnicity can fight the system and help to break it down. ~ Lizzo

We also skipped over who the "Nephilim" were, who Melchizedek was in the bible and what the "Father's" name is in the Old Testament/New Testament. Bible Class teachers would also have nothing to say about Genesis 1:26 when it says "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:" The word "us" and "our" meant more than one person. ~ Ronald Dalton Jr

Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems too Puritanical; when England is mad on Puritanism the Church seems too artistic. When you quarrel with us now you class us with kingship and despotism; but when you quarrelled with us first it was because we would not accept the divine despotism of Henry VIII. The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent virtue. ~ G.K. Chesterton

We are just peasants with money. ~ A.H. Septimius

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week. ~ Mark Knopfler

If you do not learn English in this country, you cannot get anywhere. We are in America. We are not in Mexico, we are not in China, we are not in Saudi Arabia - we speak English in this country! And what bilingual education does, is keep them from learning English, so they are doomed to be second-class citizens. ~ Rafael Cruz

[Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility. ~ Kingsley Amis

New high-tech tools allow for more precise measuring and tracking, better sharing of information, and increased visibility of targeted populations. In a system dedicated to supporting poor and working-class people's self-determination, such diligence would guarantee that they attain all the benefits they are entitled to by law. In that context, integrated data and modernized administration would not necessarily result in bad outcomes for poor communities. But automated decision-making in our current welfare system acts a lot like older, atavistic forms of punishment and containment. It filters and diverts. It is a gatekeeper, not a facilitator. ~ Virginia Eubanks

If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it. If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the Legislature as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty. ~ Alexander Hamilton

The economic class struggle is a struggle against inessanlty intensified exploitation: not only against the brutal material form of exploitation, capitalism's tendency to reduce wages, and against the class 'techniques' for increasing productivity ... but also around the question of the technical-social division of labor that prevails om enterprises, and against bourgeois ideology and repression. ~ Louis Althusser

Lord St Simon: 'I presume your usual clients do not belong to the same class?'
Sherlock Holmes: 'No, indeed. My last client was a king. ~ Arthur Hall

(Note to anyone considering joining a class: there is no need to turn up in full Strictly Come Dancing salsa outfit including fake tan. Everyone just wears jeans. Briefly awkward.) ~ Miranda Hart

Khaddar delivers the poor from the bonds of the rich and creates a moral and spiritual bond between the classes and the masses. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Luxury Rent Rebel Surrender'
'Posh People's Scorched Earth Policy'
'Win a House in Chelsea Marina'
But we had not surrendered. The exodus had been a tactical retreat, a principled refusal to accept the rule of police and bailiffs. Rather than submit to the patronising do-goodery of social-workers and psychologists like Henry and myself, the residents had decided to leave with their heads held high and integrity intact. The revolution would continue on a date to be agreed, seeing itself in a hundred other middle class estates across the land, in Tudorbethan semis and mock-Georgian villas. Wherever there was a private school or a snow-white lavatory bowl, a Gilbert and Sullivan performance or a well-loved old Bentley, the spectre of Kay Churchill would lighten the darkness, hope springing from her raised middle finger. ~ J.G. Ballard

In historical terms women, black people in general, were very attracted to very bright-colored clothing. Most people are frightened by color anyway...They just are. In this culture quiet colors are considered elegant. Civilized Western people wouldn't buy bloodred sheets or dishes. There may be something more to it than what I am suggesting. But the slave population had no access even to what color there was, because they wore slave clothes, hand-me-downs, work clothes made out of burlap and sacking. For them a colored dress would be luxurious; it wouldn't matter whether it was rich or poor cloth . . . just to have a red or a yellow dress. I stripped Beloved of color so that there are only the small moments when Sethe runs amok buying ribbons and bows, enjoying herself the way children enjoy that kind of color. The whole business of color was why slavery was able to last such a long time. It wasn't as though you had a class of convicts who could dress themselves up and pass themselves off. No, these were people marked because of their skin color, as well as other features. So color is a signifying mark. Baby Suggs dreams of color and says, "Bring me a little lavender." It is a kind of luxury. We are so inundated with color and visuals. I just wanted to pull it back so that one could feel that hunger and that delight. ~ Toni Morrison

Outcasts may grow up to be novelists and filmmakers and computer tycoons, but they will never be the athletic ruling class. ~ Chuck Klosterman

Revolution consists not in the new class commanding, governing with the aid of the old state machine, but in this class smashing this machine and commanding, governing with the aid of a new machine. ~ Vladimir Lenin

Cassio is a ladies' man, that is to say, a man who feels most at home in feminine company where his looks and good manners make him popular, but is ill at ease in the company of his own sex because he is unsure of his own masculinity.
[…]
Cassio is a ladies' man, not a seducer. With women of his own class, what he enjoys is socialized eroticism; he would be frightened of a serious personal passion. For physical sex he goes to prostitutes and when, unexpectedly, Bianca falls in love with him, like many of his kind, he behaves like a cad and brags of his conquest to others. ~ W.H. Auden

Alcohol decimated the working class and so many people. ~ Martin Scorsese

I do not understand how an aristocracy can exist, unless it be distinguished by some quality which no other class of the community possesses. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

The idea of Herman Melville in a writing class is always distressing to me. ~ Harold Bloom

Teachers wondered why I didn't speak up more in class. Why would I when I knew how precarious words could be, how betraying they were, how vulnerable they made you? ~ Justina Chen

I think in all small towns, all kind of working class communities around the world. They are kind of similar. ~ Sacha Baron Cohen

I remember when I took the role on E.R., I thought, 'I haven't really been able to play a working class woman. I've played girls, I've played funny, but I haven't played a working class woman. That sounds like something I'd like to do.' ~ Linda Cardellini

This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America ~ Paul Robeson

The classical writers ... playwrights, Jacobean, Elizabethan playwrights, all showed areas of all classes and how they live and painted them pretty authentically. ~ Timothy West

My mother taught us to sell food in the market so we could pay for school. I would get up at 4:30 A.M. and start selling bread and cheese before going to class. School cost $65. The average salary was $125 a year, and with 10 kids, how are you going to pay for that? ~ Dikembe Mutombo

Men are not born equal in either physical or mental capacity. But a socialist believes that society as a whole will benefit, and there will be more happiness for more people, if all are given equal opportunities for education and advancement regardless of class or property. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Class for Marx was defined, not by wealth or status, but by a specific group's relation to the means of production. The division of labour, present in every historical period, creates dominated and subjugated classes through which history advances by the overthrow of the former by the latter. The bourgeoisie rose above the feudal aristocracy as industrial modes of production advanced beyond the relations of production. ~ Anonymous

The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seemsas absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace. ~ Mary Blakely

There are more differences between poor people than between middle-class people. ~ Rita Mae Brown