“The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.”

Thea, in Part VI, Ch. 7
The Song of the Lark (1915)
Context: I keep my mind on it. That's the whole trick, in so far as stage experience goes; keeping right there every second. If I think of anything else for a flash, I'm gone, done for. But at the same time, one can take things in — with another part of your brain, maybe. It's different from what you get in study, more practical and conclusive. There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. You learn the delivery of a part only before an audience.

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: Dear John

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 178
Memoirs (1993)
Context: Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers. I didn't like to slap backs or other parts of the anatomy. I liked hecklers, because they brought my speeches alive. I liked supporters, because they looked happy. And I really enjoyed mingling with people, if there wasn't too much of it.

As quoted in &quot;Pressure builds for change&quot; https://web.archive.org/web/201204251111/http://www.global-briefing.org/2012/04/pressure-builds-for-change/ (April 2012), by Benon Herbert Oluka, Global: The International Briefing <br class="br">2010s

Growing Without Schooling magazine, no. 40 (1984).