[In the spirit of the Esquire column of the same name. Posted in January, 2006.]
Life is a group project.
What people claim they can do and what they can do are really two different things. “I can call spirits from the deep,” a character opines in one of Shakespeare’s plays. But his friend retorts, “So can I, and so can any man, but the question is, Will they come?”
Over the past five years I’ve learned more about the craft of writing from newspaper editors than from all my English teachers put together.
I’m not asking you to build a pryramid. I’m just asking you to do your homework.
Patriotism ought to be measured by what you do, what you say, and how you act over lots of time.
Being true and being honest are not always the same thing.
Preying mantises don’t prey; they evolve.
Every child knows that it never mattered where his mother went to college.
The best advice I’ve ever come across in print appears on the first page of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby: “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, remember that all people in this world haven’t had the same advantages that you’ve had.”
Pick up a yearbook from Penn any year prior to about 1970 and tell me what all the faces have in common? Racism still exists. Like Chris Rock says: “There’s a difference in this country between being rich and being wealthy. Shaq is rich. The guy who signs Shaq’s checks is wealthy.”
If you walk down the hallway of any American high school, I bet you can’t get to the lunchroom without hearing the word “faggot” used in a derogatory way. I wish I had a bundle of sticks for every time I’ve heard that word used out loud. I’d have a lot of sticks.
The only people who should really care about gay marriage in this country are gay people and divorce lawyers.
Incompetence makes me angry.
Kids would cheat less if teachers would assign more assignments that are fun and worthwhile to perform.
I scored 1190 on my SATs, so there, the cat is out of the bag. Today I am a perfectly happy human being with a knack for knocking nouns against verbs, whole dimensions of life that have nothing to do with how well I scored on a standardized test.
The only tests worth taking have nothing to do with multiple-choice. They have to do with conflicts of the human heart, and how one reacts to them.
Life is a group project. Oh—I already said that.
What have you learned?
(Click here to see what my students have learned.)
