“I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover, and that I would never learn a word of shorthand. If I never learned shorthand I would never have to use it.”

“Maybe that is the best lesson I learned in my first semester at Yale, because if I had gone to a less-demanding school and continued to sail along on the top, I am sure I would never have attained the subsequent achievements in my life.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

“I've never had to go very far to learn everything I have learned. I just had to care about something & pay attention.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

“I did indeed say you could have lovers. But I never promised that I would not kill them.”

Madeline Hunter (1952) American novelist

“I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

“I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.”

Dick Gregory (1932–2017) American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur

“I never did learn how to live in the moment, but I did learn that moments could be wasted and the world would continue to spin on its axis.”

Eloisa James (1962) American academic

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

“I know nothing of god or the devil. I have never learned a secret nor found a cure that would damn or save my soul.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

“And then she (Brooke Sheilds) says the ill-fated words "You have to put this in your act". And I said "What, I would never!"”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian