The phrase 'the fossil record' sounds impressive and authoritative. As used by some persons it becomes, as intended, intimidating, taking on the aura of esoteric truth as expounded by an elite class of specialists. But what is it, really, this fossil...
As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy - they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all t...
Most people say, “Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they’re like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else...
When I was 11 years old, my parents wanted me to do something besides get in trouble. So they enrolled me in sailing classes at the Sea Shell Association in Santa Barbara, Calif. From the moment I climbed into that 8-foot dinghy in 1952, I knew insti...
My high school wasn't a big public school; it was tiny. There were 36 girls in my graduating class. We were a big group of girls that by the time senior year came along couldn't wait to get away from school fast enough but we loved each other. It's r...
[first lines] Florida Prosecutor: Go on, Barbara. Barbara: We go back to our homeroom for dismissal. Unless you have a pass for sports or somethin'. Florida Prosecutor: And is that what you did on the day in question? Barbara: No. Mr. Gettys asked me...
Sister Aloysius Beauvier: James Hurley, what are you doing out of class? Jimmy Hurley: Sister James sent me down. Sister Aloysius Beauvier: For what? Jimmy Hurley: Talking. Sister Aloysius Beauvier: Well, go back up and SHUT UP!
[while playing the Line Game, in which Erin makes the class reveal that they have more in common than they care to admit] Erin Gruwell: Who has been to jail or a juvenile hall? Sindy: Does a refugee camp count? Erin Gruwell: You decide. [Sindy stands...
Gobber: The recruit who does best will win the honor of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village. Snotlout: [joking] Hiccup already killed a Night Fury, so, does that disqualify him, or...? [all snicker] Tuffnut: Can I transfer to the ...
Mr. Callahan: [Mr. Callahan looks at Patrick's terrible attempt at the Shop class term project] You've gotta be kidding me. Patrick: If you fail me, you get me next semester. [cut to Patrick proudly announcing his C- in Shop]
Hank McCoy: [to Raven] You got to see this. Your genes are extraordinary, you know that? Your cells ages at the half the rate of a normal human. When you're forty, you'll still have the leukocytes of a teenager. You have the most incredible cell stru...
[Shaw shoots Magneto's mother, which enrages him enough crush metal all around him] Sebastian Shaw: Outstanding, Erik. So we unlock your gift with anger. Anger and pain. You and me... we're going to have a lot of fun together.
Professor Charles Xavier: To Homo neanderthalensis, his mutant cousin, Homo sapiens, was an aberration. Peaceful cohabitation, if it ever existed, was short-lived. Records show, without exception, that the arrival of the mutated human species in any ...
When I first moved to L.A., I didn't have a lot of money to join a gym or take classes, so I improvised. My sister and I went to the library and looked over their DVD collection and discovered Neena and Veena, these Egyptian twins who have a whole se...
I lived in the States from 1996 till 2000. I attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1997. But I wasn't the most hard-working student. I rarely went to school. At that time, I seriously doubted that you could learn creativity in school. Mu...
I took music theory for one year in high school and flunked all but one six-week period. That's because I couldn't read music, and the rest of the class was already eight or nine years into it. The teacher would sit down and hit a ten-fingered chord ...
The class has become over the years fairly large, running to three hundred or more, but I always insist upon reading all the student folklore collections myself. Although this is a tall order, I look forward to it because I learn so much from it.
I only went along to youth theatre with a friend when I was young to try to make myself a bit more sociable. But the whole thing was quite sore; it really hurt me trying to get into drama school. It was a world I knew nothing about - it was very midd...
Whatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in...
I was just walking around saying “We’re all gonna die!” I never got over it. I went to class, I did what I had to do, but I was a gibbering idiot. It never went away. I never again felt the same way about life and death.
I always knew I wanted to be in films but didn't want anyone to taunt my parents. So I excelled in studies. I was a topper in school and college, so when I decided to become a model, people said, 'Oh your daughter is modeling,' so at least my parents...
