Former Student Quotes & Sayings

Fox News gets to the heart of the Zombie Reagan story:
Well, Jeremy, of course on line polls are not at all scientific, in fact they're pretty much completely bogus and in this case it's one that was made up on the spot by a high school student, but we all know that misleading non-information is always better than dead air, so here goes. The earliest survey taken since the rather startling resurrection of the former president is looking awfully good for the challenger and awfully not good for President Obama. — John Barnes

And speaking of options ,these kids [the ones who attend elite universities] have all been told that theirs are limitless. Once you commit to something, though, that ceases to be true. A former student sent me an essay he wrote, a few years after college, called "The Paradox of Potential." Yale students, he said, are like stem cells. They can be anything in the world, so they try to delay for as long as possible the moment when they have to become just one thing in particular. Possibility, paradoxically, becomes limitation. — William Deresiewicz

John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. And Harold Bloom, another former student. — M.H. Abrams

As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies. — Douglas Rushkoff

Will you not, as a loyal student of dear old Baylor, lay aside for a few days the usual cares of life, come back to your alma mater, renew former associations and friendships, and catch that Baylor spirit again? — Samuel Palmer

Consider a white ninth-grade student taking American history in a predominantly middle-class town in Vermont. Her father tapes Sheetrock, earning an income that in slow construction seasons leaves the family quite poor. Her mother helps out by driving a school bus part-time, in addition to taking care of her two younger siblings. The girl lives with her family in a small house, a winterized former summer cabin, while most of her classmates live in large suburban homes. How is this girl to understand her poverty? Since history textbooks present the American past as four hundred years of progress and portray our society as a land of opportunity in which folks get what they deserve and deserve what they get, the failures of working-class Americans to transcend their class origin inevitably get laid at their own doorsteps. — James W. Loewen

An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives. — Christopher Hitchens

Treading water, a little dog-paddling - it's a lot like writing a novel, Clark," the dump reader told his former student. "It feels like you're going a long way, because it's a lot of work, but you're basically covering old ground - you're hanging out in familiar territory. — John Irving

At most schools, if you switch majors, you basically start over. That means more semesters ... and more money. The former might be appealing, but the latter is a major problem for a demographic already saddled with student debt. — Brian Shactman

Next morning I finally arrived at the place. The two sisters had already left for work, but the landlady of the pension admitted me into their room. I fell asleep with exhaustion. By late afternoon, when they arrived, they were more shocked than elated about my presence. They took me within an hour to a coffee house, on Lipscani Street, where many Czernowitzers congregated. Sure enough, I met Jancu, the uncle of my former student Vera. He immediately took me with my belongings, to his family, to his parents. They were the warmest, friendliest people imaginable. Vera's mother was happy, because now, she thought, Vera would pass the grade, with my help. — Pearl Fichman

As his former student Alastair Fowler once remarked, "Lewis seemed always on the verge of hilarity -- between a chuckle and a roar. — Greg Cootsona

Harsh discipline doesn't benefit a student, but social problem solving does. Are strict rules and harsh discipline the keys to successful education? No, they aren't. In fact, harsh discipline is counterproductive to learning. Discipline can make a student focus, but it also gives him anxiety and low self-esteem. Rousseah Mieze, a APR graduate who later became a teacher, said the strict environment of APR shaped his negative self-image. When he was in college, he'd still imagine his former teachers saying things like, You don't work hard enough. You don't belong here. — Anonymous

Years after Planck's death in 1947, at the age of 89, his former student and colleague James Franck recalled watching his hopeless struggle 'to avoid quantum theory, whether he could not at least make the influence of quantum theory as little as it could possibly be'.It was clear to Franck that Planck 'was a revolutionary against his own will' who 'finally came to the conclusion, "It doesn't help. We have to live with quantum theory. And believe me, it will expand."' It was a fitting epitaph for a reluctant revolutionary. — Manjit Kumar

Accept success as a good thing, and invite it into your life.
Set today as the starting point for a new life.
Every race starts at one point.
Every building starts with one stone.
Every great work, every dream, every great achievement starts somewhere.
The march of a thousand miles begins with one step, said Confucius.
Everyone, absolutely everyone, have to start the walk somewhere.
It does not matter where you are right now.
It does not matter if you are a student, a professional, a housewife, a peasant coming to the city looking for a better life.
It does not matter if you are unemployed and out of work (or as I like to refer to it: awaiting for a really wonderful and transformative life experience that I was not having in my former employment).
What matters is not if you have a lot or have a little; but what you decide to do with what you have. — Mauricio Chaves Mesen

Former president Bill Clinton (born in 1946 and a Yale Law Student of Charles Reich) describes this divide: "If you look back on the sixties and, on balance, you think there was more good than harm, then you're probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you're probably a Republican. — Clara Bingham

As a former high school teacher and a student in a class of 60 urchins at St. Brigid's grammar school, I know that education is all about discipline and motivation. Disadvantaged students need extra attention, a stable school environment, and enough teacher creativity to stimulate their imaginations. Those things are not expensive. — Bill O'Reilly

Being a former theater student, of course, there is a part of me that is fascinated with stage crafts and what you can do with illusions and working within the confines of the studio. — Francis Ford Coppola

The the uncertainty was dispelled and the melancholy lifted as he saw a familiar stocky figure moving near one of the tents.
"Halt!" he cried out gladly, and a slight pressure with his knees set Tug galloping through the deserted Gathering site. The dog, caught by surprise, barked once, then shot in pursuit like an arrow from a bow.
The grim-faced Ranger straightened from the fire at the sound of his former student's voice. He stood, hands on hips and a frown on his face as Will and Tug careered toward him. But inside, there was a lightening of his heart that he never failed to feel when in Will's company. Not for the first time, the realization hit Halt that Will was no longer a mere boy. No one wore the Silver Oakleaf if he hadn't proven himself to be worthy. Despite himself, he felt a surge of pride. — John Flanagan

He was a sleaze, a nobody, a former graduate student of English studies. — Jonathan Franzen