Deferment Quotes & Sayings

At college my three main interests were - in descending order of importance - a steady supply of recreational drugs, a 2-S draft deferment, and overthrowing the Nixon administration. — Garry Trudeau

But I am scared. Everybody's scared."
"You know what I mean, like scared scared. Like coward scared, like if you never went to begin with. But with everything you've done nobody's going to doubt you." Then she made a somewhat frantic speech about a website she found that listed how certain people had avoided Vietnam. Cheney, Four education deferments, then a hardship 3-A. Limbaugh,4-F thanks to a cyst on his ass. Pat Buchanan, 4-F. Newt Gingrich, grad school deferment. Karl Rove, did not serve. Bill O'Reilly, did not serve. John Ashcroft, did not serve. Bush, AWOL from the Air National Guard, with a check mark in the "do not volunteer" box as to service overseas.
"You see where I'm going with this?'
"Well, yeah."
"I'm just saying, those people want a war so bad, they can fight it themselves. Billy Lynn's done his part. — Ben Fountain

Honest Winter, snow-clad, and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; But that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping gloom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honour of May how often has it robbed me of heart and hope? — George Gissing

We live in a society which on the one hand pressurizes us into the pursuit of instant gratification, and the other hand imposes on whole sectors of the population and endless deferment of fulfillment. — Terry Eagleton

The Vietnam War was causing people to get drafted; I had received a deferment to finish my undergraduate education, and in order to continue to get a deferment, you had to go to graduate school. — Robert Shapiro

I never had the chance to decide; I was drafted to serve my nation. While I received a deferment to attend school, I ultimately served in the United States Army in the years following the Korean conflict. — Don Young

Both David and Marcus, I came to realize, though they seemed happy enough, and looked forward to being doctors, had a certain sadness, a sense of loss and renunciation, about other interests they had given up.... Both became medical students, in part, to defer their call-up. But with this, I think, they deferred their other aspirations, a deferment that seemed permanent and irreversible by the time they returned to London. — Oliver Sacks

Under the elaborate filigree of language, hadn't it always been about this deferment, this selfishness, this veil drawn over the obvious truth, which was that Masood simply did not care enough? Morgan could not look at the possibility for long, but at least he could look at it, and over the coming days he took it out and hurt himself with it at particular moments when he was alone. He had always been slow to comprehend his own feelings, and it came only gradually to him how disappointed he was. — Damon Galgut

If I wanted to be Rimbaud, what was I doing in graduate school? Trying to stay out of the army, of course. Graduate study gave me a draft deferment. But I also knew I lacked erudition and polish and was often sunk in forlorn reveries. — Richard Elman

During Vietnam, I was in college, enjoying my student deferment. The government wisely felt that, in my case, military service was less important than completing my studies to prepare me for my chosen career: comedian. — Al Franken

I knew that as a pharmacy student I would obtain military deferment. As I was of Jewish origin, this meant that I would not have to serve in a forced labor unit of the Hungarian army. — John Harsanyi