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- Nov 07, 2020
Grad School Quotes
On the years spent figuring out what to study, and why.
These grad school quotes describe arriving at further study almost by process of elimination, applying for writing programs after a period of drifting, or choosing an M.A. in Family creative writing after discovering a formative book.
- Last Updated on Aug 01, 2026
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- Nov 07, 2020
I wanted to go to grad school in philosophy... Nobody was like, 'You should!' You know, they were all like, 'you could?'
- Grad
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think the book that really kind of woke me up a little bit when I was starting to write was 'Winesburg, Ohio' by Sherwood Anderson. I was in grad school at Brown, going for an M.A. in creative writing. Those stories seemed to me to be doing away with pretty writing.
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- Nov 07, 2020
If I'm not in the dead heat of working on something, I can end up spending tons and tons of time on the Web, and I hate it. I feel the same shame I did in grad school when I was pretty much addicted to reruns of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. I wish someone would make the Web just go away. Just remove it from the earth.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think my parents wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be. But I do remember them - when I first moved out to L.A. - sending me applications to grad school for teaching.
- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
It's the uncertainty, the challenge and the willingness to put it all on the line that draws a lot of people to climb mountains. That can also apply to a lot of other challenges in life, whether it's running for office, starting a family, going to grad school or taking all of your cash and assets and starting a business.
- Getting
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- Nov 07, 2020
I went to grad school with the grand plan of getting my Ph.D. and writing weighty, Tudor-Stuart-set historical fiction - from which I emerged with a law degree and a series of light-hearted historical romances about flower-named spies during the Napoleonic wars.
- First
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- Nov 07, 2020
I hadn't realized quite how intense the first few years of grad school would be. When you're being assigned 40 books a week... there's not much room for novels.
- Grad
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- Nov 07, 2020
After college, I moved to Breckenridge, Colorado, and went snowboarding every day. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn't want to do. So I applied to grad school for writing, and I just gave it a shot and took it from there.
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- Nov 07, 2020
I did a lot of theater in college, and I knew that not many people make it, but I just figured, 'Well, I really want to try acting while I'm young, and I don't ever want to look back and say that I never gave it a try.' I fully figured I'd be back in grad school - probably for psychology.
- Grad
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- Nov 07, 2020
I got some funky scholarships to play soccer and did well in my SATs, so I went off to college and then grad school but found that that wasn't me. My family, relieved I seemed to have come to my senses, were happy to let me go to film school.
- Hill
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- Nov 07, 2020
I tried a few grad school programs because I didn't know how to make it... Eventually, I was desperate for a job, and there was a new newspaper opening up in Washington, D.C., called 'The Hill.' Even though my interest in politics wasn't huge, they gave me a job as a copy editor.
- House
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- Nov 07, 2020
I went to grad school because I wanted to learn the rules so I would know how to break them. Breaking the rules is saying, 'I'm breaking in, OK? I'm breaking in your very comfortable little house over here, and I'm going to take a room.'
- Grad
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- Nov 07, 2020
When I say that I went to grad school in Iowa City, people often assume that I went to the famed writers' workshop MFA program at the University of Iowa. I didn't. I got a master's in journalism.
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- Nov 07, 2020