“I understood what he was doing, that he had spent four years fulfilling the absurd and tedious duty of graduating from college and now he was emancipated from that world of abstraction, false security, parents, and material excess.”

“At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.”

“this meant he had reached the end of the track that he had blindly followed from the first year of primary school to graduation.”

“The “some college,” “four-year college graduate,” and “no college” types who have high incomes often had a head start on many well-educated workers.”

“In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months. In 2009, bound to a wheelchair, he watched his daughter graduate from college. The wheelchair had nothing to do with his cancer. The man had fallen down while coaching his youngest son's baseball team.”

“Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.”