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!
This is a day of celebration!Today, we are divorcing the pastand marrying the present.Dance,and you will find Godin every room.Today, we are divorcing resentmentand marrying forgiveness.Sing,and God will find you in every tune.Today, we are divorcing indifferenceand marrying love.Drink, and play that tambourine against your thighs.We have so much celebrating to do!
Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.
Why should she dress in a cap and gown and sweat in the sun, when her mother was not there to pose in pictures with her and cheer when her name was called? In her mind, she only saw pictures they would never take, arms around each other, her mother gaining little wrinkles around her eyes from smiling so much.
I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain.
The best university in the world is neither Oxford nor Harvard. The best university is "youniversity". YOU got the lecture halls of thoughts in YOU! You got everything you need to graduate with first class accomplishments put in you! YOU can do it!
Flora hadn't signed my yearbook. When I got it back from the cheerleaders, I skimmed over the last few pages and saw that every one of them signed except for her. I was disappointed but I wasn't surprised.We were too much of everything to be summed up in a few sentences. -Sean Foster
Her problem is with pretty,” Tennyson said. "She thinks I’ll need all these dresses in college. Like I would ever in a billion years pledge a sorority. I’ll pack a few of these to be ironic, though. I can wear them to, like, truck stops at night with mascara running down my cheeks and stuff.
We’re not the Faster-than-the-Speed-of-Light Generation anymore. We’re not even the Next-New-Thing Generation. We’re the Soon-to-Be-Obsolete Kids, and we’ve crowded in here to hide from the future and the past. We know what’s up – the future looms straight ahead like a black wrought-iron gate and the past is charging after us like a badass Doberman, only this one doesn’t have any letup in him.
On the first day of a college you will worry about how will you do inside the college? and at the last day of a college you will wonder what will you do outside the college?
some people graduate on time. some others graduate at the right time. no matter about the time you graduations, you have to take responsibility to finish your college when you choose to start it. not for your parents, not for your friends, but for you. when you graduate, you'll be at the higher lever than your life before. remember, you don't have to be smarter, all you have to do is be the work harder than others.
Bad things are gonna' happen to you, because they happen to us all. And worrying won't stave the really bad things off. Don't make the mistake of comparing your twisted-up insides to other people's blow-dried outsides. Even the most privileged person in this stadium suffers the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human.
Education has become a ritual... Hence done by all parents... I don't see people with degrees acquired in 16-18 years know their subjects... So what's the point to feed schools with money... Our system makes every thing commercial and ritualistic... it's about security of work as it used to be in 50s to 80s... when the graduates were less... but now degree is not a promise for success... Education should create better performing humans and not Humans performing better in academics.