Stoles Graduation Quotes

I received my draft notice right after graduation from college and had three months before going into the Army in September to think about it. ~ Tim O'Brien

Life expectancy continues to rise in most of the rest of the industrialized world, but in the United States it has dropped for three years in a row - for the first time in a century. As we'll see, American kids today are 55 percent more likely to die by the age of nineteen than children in the other rich countries that are members of the OECD, the club of industrialized nations. America now lags behind its peer countries in health care and high-school graduation rates while suffering greater violence, poverty and addiction. This dysfunction damages all Americans: it undermines our nation's competitiveness, especially as growing economies like China's are fueled by much larger populations and by rising education levels, and may erode the well-being of our society for decades to come. The losers are not just those at the bottom of society, but all of us. For America to be strong, we must strengthen all Americans. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

It is a warning, Godspeed. It means you are no longer welcome here at these prices. ~ Bill Cosby

Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along. ~ Stephen Colbert

Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated. ~ Garry Trudeau

There are people who have figured out the exact, you know, Kanye West formula, the mix between "Graduation" and "808s," and were able to become more successful at it. ~ Kanye West

Texas is a national leader in education reform and student achievement. Through our college- and career-ready standards and assessments, strong school accountability, and a focus on educator development, we have created an education system that prepares our students for success after graduation. ~ Rick Perry

I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing]. ~ Sarah Dessen

Everybody wants you to do good things, but in a small town you pretty much graduate and get married. Mostly you marry, have children and go to their football games. ~ Faith Hill

The great thing about taking big chances when you're younger is you have less to lose, and you don't know as much. So you take big swings. ~ Amy Poehler

He is a demon, Clarissa," said Valentine, still in the same soft voice. "A demon with a man's face. I know how deceptive such monsters can be. Remember, I spared him once myself."
"Monster?" echoed Clary. She thought of Luke, Luke pushing her on the swings when she was five years old, higher, always higher; Luke at her graduation from middle school, camera clicking away like a proud father's; Luke sorting through each box of books as it arrived at his store, looking for anything she might like and putting it aside. Luke lifting her up to pull apples down from the trees near his farmhouse. Luke, whose place as her father this man was trying to take. "Luke isn't a monster," she said in a voice that matched Valentine's, steel for steel. "Or a murderer. You are."
"Clary!" It was Jace.
Clary ignored him. Her eyes were fixed on her father's cold black ones. "You murdered your wife's parents, not in battle but in cold blood," she said. "And I bet you murdered Michael Wayland and his little boy, too. Threw their bones in with my grandparents' so that my mother would think you and Jace were dead. Put your necklace around Michael Wayland's neck before you burned him so everyone would think those bones were yours. After all your talk about the untainted blood of the Clave - you didn't care at all about their blood or their innocence when you killed them, did you? Slaughtering old people and children in cold blood, that's monstrous. ~ Cassandra Clare

Coach said. "the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor". ~ Sherman Alexie

My advice to every student who is trying to make a decision for the years immediately after graduation: take the opportunity that in your mind is the most rewarding, that you are most passionate about and that you find most interesting and save the rest of your life for being risk averse. Whatever you want to do, this is the time to pursue it. Twenty years from now, your freedom to take risks will be limited. ~ Kenneth C. Griffin

I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater. ~ Pedro Pascal

Take action. Every story you've ever connected with, every leader you've ever admired, every puny little thing that you've ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. ~ Bradley Whitford

Upon graduation from high school, following my brother by a couple of years, I joined the U.S. Air Force. ~ Dennis L. McKiernan

We believed we could prepare our kids for a more competitive world. And today, our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record. Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. And more Americans finish college than ever before. ~ Barack Obama

The ethic of ecstasy is the opposite of the trial's ethic; under its protection everybody does whatever he wants: now anyone can suck his thumb as he likes, from infancy to graduation, and it is a freedom no one will be willing to give up; look around you on the Metro; seated or standing, every single person has a finger in some orifice of his face-in the ear, in the mouth, in the nose; no one feels he's being observed, and everyone dreams of writing a book to tell about his unique and inimitable self, which is picking its nose; no one listens to anyone else, everyone writes, and each of them writes the way rock is danced to: alone, for himself, focused on himself yet making the same motions as all the others. In this situation of uniform egocentricity, the sense of guilt does not play the role it once did; the tribunals still operate, but they are fascinated exclusively by the past; they see only the core of the century; they see only the generations that are old or dead. ~ Milan Kundera

There's no there. That elusive 'there' with the job, the beach house, the dream, it's not out there. There is here. It's in you ... right now. ~ Brian Kenny

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That's what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first. ~ Anna Quindlen

After graduation, we can just ... ride into the sunrise," he says. "The sunrise?" His lips twitch. "If we ride into the sunset, we'd wind up in the middle of the Pacific. ~ Heather Demetrios

The unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. ~ Jon Stewart

Graduation Speech: I'd like to thank the internet, Google, Wikipedia, Microsoft Word, and Copy & Paste. ~ Steve Weinburg

It is important to have determination and optimism and patience. If you lack patience, even when you face some small obstacle, you lose courage. There is a Tibetan saying, "Even if you have failed at something nine times, you have still given it effort nine times." I think that's important. Use your brain to analyze the situation. Do not rush through it, but think. Once you decide what to do about that obstacle, then there's a possibility that you will achieve your goal. ~ Dalai Lama

And we didn't have cell phones. If you made plans to meet someone in a snow storm, and they didn't show up, you just had to assume they were devoured by wolves and go on with your life. ~ Stephen Colbert

If you're willing to stand for what you believe in ... you won't need advice from me, because you will be able to handle whatever comes. ~ Whoopi Goldberg

The most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom to learn. All education is a continuous dialogue - questions and answers that pursue every problem on the horizon. That is the essence of academic freedom. ~ William O. Douglas

I exclusively attended public school ... And I can honestly say that on the day of my graduation, if you had given me a pop quiz on history, science, or math, I would have in no way been able to pass it - despite the fact that I completely understood it at the time that it had been 'taught' to me, and had even made a good 'grade' on it. ~ Jessica Bowman

Live your fear." Why didn't we teach kids that? Why wasn't that in a graduation speech? Commencement speakers should start telling the truth: "You're going to fuck up, but most of the time, that's all right. ~ Mara Wilson

Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it. ~ Mary Lou Retton

Life is not about warming yourself by the fire, life is about building the fire. And generosity is the match ... If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap, but if you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. ~ Larry Lucchino

You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. ~ Tom Brokaw

What I like about graduation speeches is that they're an opportunity for someone to make sense of their life and to impart that wisdom to someone else. It's like a sanctioned self-help moment. ~ Bruce Eric Kaplan

The morning after my high-school graduation found me up early job hunting. The dream of college I put on the back burner. ~ Martha Reeves

Pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower! ~ John Green

As citizens, we understand that it is not about what America may do for us. It's about what can be done by us, together. ~ Barack Obama

After graduating in the summer of 1980, I knew I wanted my life to count. ~ Donna Rice

When you graduate from college, they tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first? ~ Bill Cosby

Life is not about discovering our talents; it is about pushing our talents to the limit and discovering our genius. ~ Robert Breault

You're not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You're going to advance in life by what you're going to learn after you leave here. ~ Charlie Munger

I was raped, too
sexually assaulted in seventh grade,
tenth grade. the summer after graduation,
at a party
i was 16
i was 14
i was 5 and he did it for three years
i loved him
i didn't even know him
he was my best friend's brother,
my grandfather, father, mommy's boyfriend, my date, my cousin, my coach
i met him for the first time that night and-
4 guys took turns, and-
i'm a boy and this happened to me, and-
... i got pregnant i gave up my daughter for adoption ... did it happen to you, too? ~ Laurie Halse Anderson