“I also spoke about the kid who can’t be bothered to get A’s in every class in high school because they’re actually more interested in following their curiosity, so here’s another rule of thumb. U.S. News supplies the percentage of… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share Image
Life, if you live it right, keeps surprising you, and the thing that keeps surprising you the most…is yourself — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“No real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.” — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
If you're oblivious to other people, chances are pretty good that you're going to hurt them. — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
Don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control.… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“there’s a bigger social reward for being able to talk about books than for actually reading them.” — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
We proceed by doubt, by trial and error, by resisting the impulse to lunge after certainty. — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“...Novels--which, after all, are training grounds for responding to the world, imaginative sanctuaries in which to hone and test our ethical judgments and choices.” — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
People’s stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“Life is more than a job; jobs are more than a paycheck; and a country is more than its wealth. Education is more than… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“By the time they finish high school—after years of learning how to please their teachers and coaches, not to mention schmoozing with their parents’… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“Getting A’s no longer means that everything’s okay, assuming that it ever did. “We have students, who, no matter what else is going on… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“Both kinds of parenting, finally, are forms of overidentification. The helicopter parent turns the child into an instrument of her will. The overindulgent parent… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“A friend who teaches at a top university once asked her class to memorize thirty lines of the eighteenth-century poet Alexander Pope. Every single… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
“We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and… — William Deresiewicz Copy Share
