The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.
Anna QuindlenRead
The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Success in the future depends more on intelligence and creativity than on popularity or superficial achievements.
This quote by Anna Quindlen emphasizes that genuine success is rooted in intellectual abilities and critical thinking rather than societal status or fleeting high school popularity. It critiques the cultural messages that often prioritize surface-level achievements over meaningful skills, suggesting that young people should focus on developing their minds to build a successful future.
Themes
FutureBrainsEducationSuccessCulture
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech at a university graduation, to inspire students to focus on their intellectual development.
More from Anna Quindlen
All quotes →I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.
Anna QuindlenRead
With reference to the younger generation..."If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane."
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Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.
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I conveniently forgot to remember that people only have two hands, or, as another parent once said of having a third child, it's time for a zone defense instead of man-to-man.
Anna QuindlenRead
I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make my marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
Anna QuindlenRead
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