“We worked 80 hour weeks for 30 years to keep from having to get a real job.”

“Tanner: I think that I might kiss you to keep your lips busy with something other than insulting me.Ella: If you think you can do it without getting lost.”

“I want to go to there.”

“You can try to change New York, but it’s like Jay-Z says: “Concrete bunghole where dreams are made up. There’s nothing you can do.”

“'Can you imagine, 30 years ago, saying nobody will make coffee at home?' Nancy McGuckin, a travel researcher in Washington, D.C.”

“I've learned one thing, and that's to quit worrying about stupid things. You have four years to be irresponsible here, relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does...”

“Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for the next generation. While the university's busy exploiting you for cheap labor, you somehow have to produce a boring thesis that no one will read, and find someone willing to publish it as a book. And then, if you're unsually talented and extraordinarily lucky, you just might be able to secure a one-year, nonrenewable appointment teaching remedial composition to football players in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, the Internet's booming, and the kids we gave C pluses to are waltzing out of college and getting rich on stock options while we bust our asses for a pathetic stipend that doesn't even cover the rent.”