Graduation Quotes

“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, White Oleander

“We were nostalgic for a time that wasn't yet over.”
― Nina LaCour, We Are Okay

“When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our answers were thing like astronaut, president, or in my case… princess.

When we were ten, they asked again and we answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how 'bout this: who the hell knows?!

This isn't the time to make hard and fast decisions, its time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy 'cause there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again, because nothing is permanent.

So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be… we won't have to guess. We'll know.

[from the movie]”
― Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse

“Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.”
― Jim Carrey

“A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that "individuality" is the key to success.”
― Robert Orben

“Coach said. "the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor".”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Congratulations!
Today is your day
You're off to great places
You're off and away

You've got brains in your head
You've got feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any
Direction you choose

You're on your own
And you know what you know
And you are the guy
Who'll decide where you go

Out there things can happen
And frequently do
To people as brainy
And footsy as you

And will you succeed?
Yes you will indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed)

You're off to great places
Today is your day
Your mountain is waiting
Go, get on your way!”
― Dr. Suess

“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

“We’re not the Faster-than-the-Speed-of-Light Generation anymore. We’re not even the Next-New-Thing Generation. We’re the Soon-to-Be-Obsolete Kids, and we’ve crowded in here to hide from the future and the past. We know what’s up – the future looms straight ahead like a black wrought-iron gate and the past is charging after us like a badass Doberman, only this one doesn’t have any letup in him.”
― Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

“Just because you don't know what you want yet, it doesn't mean that there's nothing to want.”
― Emily Henry, The Love That Split the World

“pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower!”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.”
― Richard Halliburton

“When you graduate from college, they tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first?”
― Bill Cosby

“Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer.”
― David McCullough Jr.

“You won’t be able to do this ten years from now—just leave everything behind and go.”
― Rachel Kapelke-Dale, Graduates in Wonderland: The International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults

“Look beyond your tasseled caps
And you will see injustice.
At the end of your fingertips
You will find cruelties,
Irrational hate, bedrock sorrow
And terrifying loneliness.
There is your work.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“Bad things are gonna' happen to you, because they happen to us all. And worrying won't stave the really bad things off. Don't make the mistake of comparing your twisted-up insides to other people's blow-dried outsides. Even the most privileged person in this stadium suffers the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human.”
― Mary Karr, Now Go Out There:

“We don’t need a gown.
We don’t need a stage.
We are walking beside our ancestors,
Their drums roar for us,
Their feet stomp at our life.
There is power in being robbed
& still choosing to dance.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry

“How do we deal with all the people we’ve been? What happens when we have to confront them?”
― Rachel Kapelke-Dale, Graduates in Wonderland: The International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults

“I snicker, but the idea is momentarily appealing. Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension of opposites.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

“On the other side of graduation was her actual life, the slow narrowing of possibilities that would catch her and freeze her in a vocation, a relationship, a life. She intended to avoid that slow calcification for as long as possible—if only by refraining from making any crucial choices. In other words, she was moving back home.”
― Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

“Even if you think you are thinking and acting globally, there is always more to learn and know!”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Children teach us things we did not know we needed to learn.”
― C.J. Urquico

“Wedding Anniversity: A yearly event held in a life-long institution where the goal is not to graduate but to avoid being expelled.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term cringe might someday be deemed cringe.”
― Taylor Swift

“degree for sale”
― allexamscertificates.com

“Archeology gives me the chance to see where man has been and lets me question where man is headed.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“I wrote my graduation speech, extolling my fellow graduates to follow their passion, the same advice always given to, and usually ignored by, all college graduates. I told myself I was following my passion, that I wanted to do this. And I believed it. I was determined once again to show the world I was right. That I knew how to choose the life and the group that was best for me. I was sure I could be a part of the army but not owned by it, that a person could have brains and independent, innovative thoughts and still be part of a larger group that gave their life purpose, meaning, identity, and structure, even if that culture demanded uniformity. I wouldn't be a brainwashed automaton, I'd be different. I was sure I knew what I was getting into, what I was signing my life over to, and how it would play out. I was wrong.”
― Daniella Mestyanek Young, Uncultured: A Memoir

“Friends have asked me how I felt about not being able to wear the “Sablay.” At first, it was frustrating. However, I realized that graduation was not diminished by the absence of celebration or custom. It is momentous for the value it espouses. To me, it was the fulfilment of a promise and an opportunity to aid in rebuilding a country slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
― Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo , Night Owl: A Nationbuilder’s Manual