#grad

So as a seventh grader, no, you weren't friends with people you didn't like. But sometimes you also weren't friends with people you did like, which was complicated, and which didn't make any sense if you tried to explain it. Sometimes things just changed. That's where the sadness came in. ↗

— Lauren Myracle

#complicated #friends #like #sadness #seventh-grade

I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain. ↗

— Janet Fitch

#graduation #growth #insight #maturity #teenager

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us. ↗

— Patti Davis

#america #country #father #feeling #gradually

Take courage. You do not yet see your own abilities because you have never been tested. You have never demonstrated to yourself or anyone all that you can do. Put your fears aside and trust that you can succeed in the challenges that lie ahead." - King Hercalon IV, Former King of Oomaldee ↗

— L.R.W. Lee

#dragon #fantasy #middle-grade #courage

I've told my children that when I die, to release balloons in the sky to celebrate that I graduated. For me, death is a graduation. ↗

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

#balloons #celebrate #children #die #graduated

Kernel grins. “To the death, Master Grady?” “To the death, Master Fleck,” I grin back. Then we both say together, “But not ours! ↗

— Darren Shan

#kernel-fleck #death

The gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers. They were called Sheila's Front Porch, Tawny's High Five Ranch and Miss Delilah's House of Holies. "Nice," Rachel said as we surveyed the scene. "why are these places always named after women -- as if women actually own them?" "You got me. I guess Mister Dave's House of Holies wouldn't go over so well with the guys." Rachel smiled. "You're right. I guess it's a shrewd move. Name a place of female degradation and slavery after a female and it doesn't sound so bad, does it? It's packaging. ↗

— Michael Connelly

#brothels #degradation #exploitation #marketing #prostitution

If you are a dreamer, come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer... If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in! ↗

— Shel Silverstein

#crete #dreams #greece #happiness #jack-r-kearns

I mask my hate. I mask my pain. One thing that I can't mask is my dwindling grade point average." -Dreams, Smiles, and Bloody Tears ↗

— Chamera Sampson

#mask #teen #dreams

When you graduate from college, they tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first? ↗

— Bill Cosby

#humor #dreams