John Knowles Quotes


"Young people in my generation were sort of in lockstep, and it wasn't just the '40s, either. In the '30s and in the '50s it was the same. No one ever dropped out unless he got sick or got kicked out."
- John Knowles
(Related: People)

"The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward."
- John Knowles
(Related: Teaching)

"My father was in the coal business in West Virginia. Both dad and mother were, however, originally from Massachusetts; New England, to them, meant the place to go if you really wanted an education."
- John Knowles
(Related: Business, Dad, Education, Mother, Father, England)

"The summer of 1943 at Exeter was as happy a time as I ever had in my life."
- John Knowles
(Related: Life, Time, Summer)

"Teenagers today are more free to be themselves and to accept themselves."
- John Knowles
(Related: Teenagers, Today)

"Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school."
- John Knowles
(Related: Life, Class, School)

"Looking back, I think we were all quite mature, surprisingly responsible. In earlier wars, boys of our age had just gone off to raise hell or enlist or both, but we stayed dutifully at our desks doing tomorrow's homework."
- John Knowles
(Related: Age, Boys, Hell, Tomorrow)