Quotes about school and education
page 5

“I thought about all the things I was suddenly able to do—like fight with a sword and summon a magical shell of armor. Those were not things I covered in home school.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Home, Fight

“You can drag my body to school but my spirit refuses to go.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

“If I gave my mother a knitted scarf she'd be worried I was wasting my time doing stupid stuff like knitting instead of school work. Presenting a homemade knitted object to my parents was actually like handing them a detailed backlog of my idleness.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Stupidity, Parent, Time

“Prison for the crime of puberty—that was how secondary school had seemed, when he really thought back on it.”

David Brin book Earth

Part VIII (p. 462)
Source: Earth (1990)

“The human heart is my school.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Armand

Source: The Vampire Armand

Heart

“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School

Life

“To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Education

“Prison is like high school with knives.”

Raegan Butcher (1969) American actor and singer

“Believe me, It would be better if we didn't meet again. Go back to school. Go back to your life. And next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown-ups and you're still a child.”

Anthony Horowitz book Stormbreaker

Source: Stormbreaker

Life, Time

“Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Girl

“The problem is not that it's too difficult for children, but that it's too difficult for grown ups. Much of the world view of Einstein's thinking wasn't being taught when the grown ups were in school, but the children were comfortably familiar with it.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)
Context: I've always believed that there is no subject that is taboo for the writer. It is how it is written that makes a book acceptable, as a work of art, or unacceptable and pornographic. There are many books circulating today, for the teen-ager as well as the grown up, which would not have been printed in the fifties. It is still amazing to me that A Wrinkle In Time was considered too difficult for children. My children were seven, ten, and twelve while I was writing it, and they understood it. The problem is not that it's too difficult for children, but that it's too difficult for grown ups. Much of the world view of Einstein's thinking wasn't being taught when the grown ups were in school, but the children were comfortably familiar with it.

Children, World, Problem, Thinking

“Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Beauty, Tea

“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

Nigger: An Autobiography (1964)

Hate, Home, Learning

“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Life, Home, Parting, Daughters

“As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I'm crying. So I go back to the stories I've read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Understanding, Sense, Reading, Cry

“I don't care how much you eat, Ender, self-cannibalism won't get you out of this school.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

Learning

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Love, Sex

“This is the Wilderness School. 'Where the Kids are animals”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Animals

“She's a librarian, Sim said. They're not teachers; don't give you half as much hassle. If there's a fire in the school and I've got to choose who I'm gonna save - a teacher or a librarian - the teacher's gonna burn every time.
(p. 24)”

Keith Gray (1963) American basketball player

Source: Ostrich Boys

Teachers, Time

“Another school declares that all time has already transpired and that our life is only the crepuscular and no doubt falsified and mutilated memory or reflection of an irrecoverable process.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

Source: Ficciones

Life, Memory, Time

“In our secular society, school has become the replacement for church, and like church it requires that its teachings must be taken on faith.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Faith

“When you've come face-to-face with the dark side of the school yard, life doesn't hold many surprises.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: Half-Moon Investigations

Life

“Nudge: "I look like prep school Barbie. (looks at Max) Actually, you look like prep school Barbie. I'm just Barbie's friend.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

“Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Love

“The school even had a Latin motto: Pergo et Perago, which sounded like the story of two Italian cannibals but which actually meant “I try and I achieve.”

Anthony Horowitz book Crocodile Tears

Source: Crocodile Tears

“I don’t have an issue with what you do in the church, but I’m gonna be up in your face if you’re gonna knock on my science classroom and tell me they’ve got to teach what you’re teaching in your Sunday school. Because that’s when we’re gonna fight!”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Science, Fight

“It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Hate

“I'll ride my bike all the stinkin' way to school for the rest of eternity if it means being with her.

-Bryce”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Way

“From the look on your face, I'd say you know him."

I nodded. "Sold him a cannoli when I was in high school."

Connie grunted. "Honey, half of all the women in New Jersey have sold him their cannoli”

Janet Evanovich book One for the Money

Source: One for the Money

Women

“I believe in teaching, but I don’t believe in going to school.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

Children

“And now, Anubis, I find you in this den of iniquity, this morass of questionable behavior, this… this--'

'School?”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

Behavior, Question

“The top two movies at the box office this weekend were 'High School Musical 3' and 'Saw V.'

One movie features gruesome onscreen torture that is difficult to watch and the other is about a guy with a saw.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

Music, Guy, Box

“Raven! What are you doing up so late? You have school tomorrow!"…"But I thought it was just the one time?”

Ellen Schreiber book Vampire Kisses

Source: Vampire Kisses

Time

“In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: It's a Magical World: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

Happiness, Memory, Success

“Oh, so you see some chick in baggy jeans and a hoodie, and you just have to have her so bad, you decide to repeat high school, just to get her?"

"Sounds about right." He laughs.”

Alyson Nöel book Evermore

Source: Evermore

“When you wage war on the public schools, you're attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You're not a conservative, you're a vandal.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America

War, Communication

“Middle school is for being like everyone else; middle age is for being like yourself. (430)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

Age

“Maybe being home schooled, Carter didn’t realize that “test” is normally a bad thing.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Home

“Remember in elementary school you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file from smallest to tallest? What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower?”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

People

“As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Books

“You are not my high school crush, idiot.”
“Great. I can die happy, then.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Happiness

“I don't get why prom is like a mini-wedding these days… No one should spend that kind of money for a high school dance.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Fortunes of Indigo Skye

Money, Wedding, Dance

“Medical school had been a time for imaginary diseases and Martin had contracted almost all of them.”

Robin Cook (1931–1994) English crime writer

Source: Brain

Disease, Time

“I hated school. I don't trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Variant: I hated high school. I don’t trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there’s something wrong with you.

Hate

“You write for the people in high school who ignored you. We all do.”

Carolyn Kizer (1925–2014) American poet

People

“[Myrnin to Claire about their costumes of Pierrot and Harlequin, respectively]
"Don't they teach you anything in your schools?"
"Not about."
"Pity. I suppose that's what comes of your main education flowing from Google.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Feast of Fools

Education

“He has ''. Eddy fumbled for her high school French. 'A heart like an artichoke?' '. He has a leaf for everyone, but makes a meal for no one.”

Poppy Z. Brite (1967) Novelist, short story writer, food writer

Heart

“It's easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

“I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

“We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

"We ReaI CooI" , The Bean Eaters (1960)
The "We"—you're supposed to stop after the "We" and think about their validity, and of course there's no way for you to tell whether it should be said softly or not, I suppose, but I say it rather softly because I want to represent their basic uncertainty, which they don't bother to question every day, of course.
"An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks", Contemporary Literature 11:1 (Winter 1970)
The WEs in "We Real Cool" are tiny, wispy, weakly argumentative "Kilroy-is-here" announcements. The boys have no accented sense of themselves, yet they are aware of a semi-defined personal importance. Say the "We" softly.
Report from Part One (1972)
Source: Selected Poems

Singing

“You ever think that school dances are a form of legalized prostitution?”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Thinking, Dance

“I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady."
Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.”

Scott Westerfeld book Touching Darkness

Source: Touching Darkness

Smile, Tea

“Whoa. If high school was suppose to be the best years of my life - at least so far - I was truly destined to have a sucky adulthood.”

Meg Cabot book Airhead

Source: Airhead

Life, Adulthood

“Ringo: 'I had no schooling before I joined The Beatles and no schooling after The Beatles. Life is a great education.”

Ringo Starr (1940) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Source: The Beatles Anthology

Life, Education

“Argue not concerning God,…re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul…”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

God, Books, Soul

“Often, a school is your best bet-perhaps not for education but certainly for protection from an undead attack.”

Max Brooks book The Zombie Survival Guide

Source: The Zombie Survival Guide

Education

“Artemis felt like he was six again and caught hacking the school computers trying to make the test questions harder”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Time Paradox

Question

“An environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.”

Richard Louv (1949) American journalist

Source: Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

World, Education, Help

“Call school, tell them I'm lovesick.”

Ellen Schreiber book Vampire Kisses

Source: Vampire Kisses

“It is clearly absurd to limit the term 'education' to a person's formal schooling.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

Source: Education, Free & Compulsory

Education, Personality

“Part 3
BACK TO SCHOOL (THE NORMAL KIND)”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Parting

“One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Time

“Maybe instead of stalking her, you should go out with someone else."

He sighed. "You don't think I've tried? How can anyone compare? You might not believe this, but there is no one like Ageline at this school.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Thinking

“Maybe the Merlin was right. Maybe its better to look stupid but strong, than it is to look smart but weak, I don't know. I'm not sure I want to believe that the world stage bears that strong a resemblance to high school.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

Stupidity, World, Strong

“Gossip is one thing, hurtful gossip is completely another, and even in high school we weren't THAT mean.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Hurt

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Letters of John Keats

Pain, World, Soul, Intelligence

“You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don't have the right to abandon him just because he's inconvenient or has trouble in school.”

Michael Crichton book Next

Source: Next

“Time is the school in which we learn”

Joan Didion (1934) American writer

Learning, Time

“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

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life, Learning

“How is it possible that our parents lied to us?"

"Lets see: Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter bunny, um, God. You're the prettiest kid in school. This wont hurt a bit. Your face will freeze like that…"

"Everythings going to be alright.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Runaways, Vol. 1: Pride and Joy

God, Parent, Hurt

“Do you know how to pick a lock?"
"Not in the least, I'm afraid."
"I often wonder what we go to school for," said Wimsey.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Strong Poison

Source: Strong Poison

“Teenagers read millions of books every year. They read for entertainment and for education. They read because of school assignments and pop culture fads.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Books, Education, Reading

“It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Teachers

“What is the most important thing one learns in school? Self-esteem, support, and friendship.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Pieces of White Shell

Friendship, Support, Learning

“I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

“Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

Thinking, Teachers

“When I was six years old I sprinkled sugar on my head, convinced myself it was pixie dust, wished myself invisible, and walked into the boys' bathroom at school.”

Janet Evanovich book Lean Mean Thirteen

Source: Lean Mean Thirteen

Boy

“Consumerism is the worship of the god of quantity; advertising is its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false longing.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

God, Falseness

“I failed angst in high school. They let me graduate anyway.”

John Scalzi (1969) American science fiction writer

Source: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008

“It is perhaps beside the point to remark that bowling alleys and supermarkets have nursery facilities, while schools and colleges and scientific laboratories and government offices do not.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique

“Rules and school are tools for fools! I don't give two mules for rules.”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Fools

“I was of the “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, then wonder why life didn’t give you freaking sugar so you could drink the stuff” school of thought.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Eternally Yours

Life, Drink

“Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Football

“I’ve met plenty of embarrassing parents, but Kronos, the evil Titan Lord who wanted to destroy Western Civilization? Not the kind of dad you invited to
school for Career Day.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Parent, Evil

“Watching Jace hug Isabelle, she tried to school her features into a happy and loving expression.
"Are you all right?" Simon asked, with some concern. "Your eyes are crossing.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Love, Happiness

“She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music.
She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Music, Dance, Personality

“We are no longer worried that children are missing school because of video games, though. We are worried that they are murdering their classmates because of video games.”

Tom Bissell (1974) American journalist

Children, Game

“An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Source: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Life

“All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Children, Stupidity

“I'm solitary as a pulled tooth,
Lonely as an unwelcome truth,
Lost as a minnow out of school,
A genius in a crop of fools.”

Gail Carson Levine Fairest

Source: Fairest

Truth, Fools

“A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Imagination

“Every high school has its Romeo and Juliet, one tragic couple. So does every generation.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

“High School is the penalty for transgressions yet to be specified.”

Frank Portman King Dork

Source: King Dork

Penalty

“The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

“They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it marking you down if you did the same thing.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

“In those three years, (from fourteen to seventeen years old)… I came to understand the meaning of a drawing from the life, the synthesis of my art, and the rhythm of animais. I remember that a companion of those days,' of whom I hâve since lost sight, made me see, in a couple of hours, on a very true and simple principle, an observation of the necessary equilibria of movement not taught in the schools, the secret of the plans of a figure. That lesson has influenced my whole life. As for the ornament-maker, in whose workshop I earned a scanty wage, I long deplored being constrained to do so, but I hâve since thought with affection of it, understanding that there are as many sources of beauty in ornament as in the face.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Auguste Rodin: The Man, His Ideas, His Works, 1905, p. 2-3

Life, Secret, Beauty, Art

“The twentieth century has witnessed with surprise, not merely the promulgation of these ferocious doctrines, but their enforcement with brutal vigour by the Government and by the populace. No past services, no proved patriotism, even wounds sustained in war, could procure immunity for persons whose only crime was that their parents had brought them into the world. Every kind of persecution, grave or petty, upon the world-famous scientists, writers, and composers at the top down to the wretched little Jewish children in the national schools, was practised, was glorified, and is still being practised and glorified.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 681
The 1930s

War, Children, World, Parent

“The Kabbalah was first taught by God himself to a select company of angels, who formed a theosophic school in Paradise.”

Christian David Ginsburg (1831–1914) Polish-British Bible scholar

The Essenes and the Kabbalah: Two Essays, p. 84

God, Angels

Quotes about school and education page 5

Quotes about school and education
page 5