Left School Quotes

#1. Still today, I cannot cross the threshold of a teaching institution without physical symptoms, in my chest and my stomach, of discomfort or anxiety. And yet I have never left school.

Jacques Derrida

#2. I'm not educated. I left school when I was 16, with no qualifications.

Robbie Williams

#3. I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

Robin Williams

#4. I had never gone to college, I left school at a really early age, and all of a sudden I've got six really great friends hanging out with me every night. And we were a really tight group, and we just had an absolute blast.

Kiefer Sutherland

#5. One Size Does Not Fit All Some of the most brilliant, creative people I know did not do well at school. Many of them didn't really discover what they could do - and who they really were - until they'd left school and recovered from their education.

Ken Robinson

#6. As soon as I left school at 16, I worked in a factory making aircraft components.

Anton Du Beke

#7. I left school with no qualifications, but I was doing theatre and film work and thought that was the best thing since sliced bread.

Dexter Fletcher

#8. I left school at 16 but I wish I'd gone to university - I think I would have studied English literature. I had a knack for that. But I don't think you have the kind of wisdom at 16 to make that decision.

Brendan Coyle

#9. I remember her words to me when I left school: Your mind will be your comfort. It is, sometimes. And sometimes it isn't.

Christina Baker Kline

#10. I didn't have any qualifications when I left school - I had three O-levels.

Simon Cowell

#11. Probably the most important piece of advice that I've ever gotten is to develop your mind. I left school very young and I always regretted it.

Stephanie Seymour

#12. I'm not really sure where that comes from, ... Maybe it's because I've lived more than most 25-year-olds. I left school at an early age, traveled a lot ... but I still have a far way to go.

Kasey Chambers

#13. We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Gwendolyn Brooks

#14. My dad was a master butcher and I trained to be a butcher when I left school. I didn't enjoy it at the time but I love cooking now, so perhaps I would have been a chef.

Brendan Coyle

#15. When I left school, I wanted to be an artist, specifically a painter.

Jonathan Pryce

#16. We've had the most massive creation of wealth for people a lot younger than those who formerly got wealth in the history of the world. The world is full of young people who really want to get rich, and when I left school nobody thought it was a reasonable possibility.

Charlie Munger

#17. My father left school at 14, my mother at 13. My father was clever and well-read. He took a newspaper, always watched the news, discussed it all the time.

Robert Harris

#18. I left school when I was 16; then I worked for my father, who was a welder. And I was a welder for three years, you know, welder of fabrication, metal 'cause it was a big industrial town, Sheffield. It was much steel and coal and stuff like that.

Sean Bean

#19. As a small child in England, I had this dream of going to Africa. We didn't have any money and I was a girl, so everyone except my mother laughed at it. When I left school, there was no money for me to go to university, so I went to secretarial college and got a job.

Jane Goodall

#20. When I left school I went on trip around the world - I only got as far as Australia, but like a bloody fool I cut it short because of a girl. It's probably one of my big regrets in life.

Ben Nicholson

#21. My father wanted me to play pro football, and he didn't like the fact that I'd left school. And he said, It takes a man to play football. And any fool can go up on the stage and make an ass of himself.

Bill Cosby

#22. Politics colours everything, and anyone who wants change is necessarily political. As an environmental campaigner more or less since I left school in the early '90s, I have always been involved in lobbying, campaigning and pushing for changes.

Zac Goldsmith

#23. I was 19 years old, pumping gas and going nowhere. I was kind of a high school dropout at that point because I had left school to play hockey, but no one drafted me.

Adam Oates

#24. I spent a lot of time alone; I left school to be tutored. So, most of my companions were animals. It's as simple as that. I knew more animals than I did people.

Jamie Wyeth

#25. I worked in a paper factory the week after I left school. I had loads of paper cuts all over my hands and the pay was dreadful. On my third day I was like, 'Can I leave early? I've got an audition for Coronation Street.' They said yes and I never went back.

Suzanne Shaw

#26. At 15 years of age, I left school to practice the profession of Office Boy in a business firm in Salem, Oregon.

Herbert Hoover

#27. Hairspray and blusher, eyelash curlers, eye-shadow palettes the size of tea-trays. Even before they left school it was as if they were already rehearsing for some witless kind of womanhood.

Alison Fell

#28. I left school the day I turned 16, the earliest day I legally could. Determined to follow a life on stage, preferably with some dance connection, I applied for and won a place at the local drama school. I was on my way.

Celia Imrie

#29. I just decided that I wasn't going to gain anything by going to school, since we couldn't afford it anyway, so I left school very early and went to work and progressively did things.

Kerry Stokes

#30. At only 20 years old I got married. I was still a kid myself, but in those times, if you got someone pregnant, you had no choice but to get married. So I left school and the only thing I could do was sing.

David Soul

#31. When I left school I was full of angst, like any teenager, and I channeled it all into comedy.

Matt Lucas

#32. This old man had once told me that he left school when he was twelve, whereas I had spent most of the twenty-four years in my life in study. Yet when I looked back on the last hour or so I could come to only one conclusion. I'd had more of books, but he had more of learning.

James Herriot

#33. Had my own car at twelve years old. Left school in the tenth grade. Married when I was sixteen. Ain't hard to figure out; I was a man at a very young age.

Joe Frazier

#34. I hadn't even thought about what I wanted to do when I left school because I was only 14 when I started modelling.

Kate Moss

#35. After I left school, where I studied art, photography and textiles at A-level, I started doing an apprenticeship in interior design, but I wasn't really enjoying it very much, so I decided to do something creative, and in 2009, I began blogging.

Zoe Sugg

#36. I've worked hard, every single day since I left school. I think I have a Protestant work ethic.

Elvis Costello

#37. I left school on a wet Thursday afternoon, found a room in a shared house in North London, and started my first job on the following Monday as a courier for an advertising agency.

Christopher Fowler

#38. When I left school, I never wondered whether my apartment in New York was vulnerable to storm surges, but my three daughters have to consider the realities of extreme weather and how it may destabilize communities around the globe.

Frances Beinecke

#39. I didn't want to go to college or work in an office or have a nine-to-five job. I knew that quite clearly before I left school.

Aidan Gillen

#40. I left Scotland when I was 16 because I had no qualifications for anything but the Navy, having left school at 13.

Sean Connery

#41. I left school with basically nothing, I was a special needs kid. I did feel as though my school had let me down.

Jamie Oliver

#42. I was dyslexic and uneducated and left school at 14. I grew up in Finsbury Park, which was a pretty bad place where you had to fight and be beaten. It was just a constant roundabout of violence.

Don McCullin

#43. I left school at 15 feeling fairly useless and not really up to scratch in my education. And I still suffer sometimes from that lack of education.

Pierce Brosnan

#44. I don't know about an awful lot of stuff. I'm not educated. I left school when I was 16, with no qualifications. The thing that I do know about is my feelings and what I think of the world and what I think of me.

Robbie Williams

#45. By the time I left school, I had a lot of tenacity.

Halle Berry

#46. The Oxford English Dictionary is the greatest work of reference ever written, and it's largely the result of a Scotsman who left school at fourteen, and a criminally insane American.

Mark Forsyth

#47. When I left school, I went backpacking around the world for two years.

Georgia Salpa

#48. Some of today's athletes do not have that kind of pride. They left school at 16, have never had a job in their life and are getting Lottery funding, earning money as an athlete.

Linford Christie

#49. I was fantastically well versed by the time I left school. I had a teacher who put 'A Clockwork Orange' my way, and 'Catcher in the Rye.'

Kenneth Cranham

#50. I was quite advanced when I was at school, and when I left school it seemed that all these really oafish clods from school were making tremendous progress and had wonderfully large cars and lots of money, and I seemed to be constantly waiting for a bus that never came.

Steven Morrissey

#51. When I left school I went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama department of a school in Perth.

James D'arcy

#52. I left school when I was 14 to work in kitchens.

Wolfgang Puck

#53. I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I - if I'm not interested in something, I don't grasp it.

Richard Branson

#54. Most of it was nuts, but I was determined to be a drummer as soon as I left school.

John Bonham

#55. I hated school. After 15, you went off to college if you were good enough. It didn't appeal to me so I left school. I did what everybody did - get a job.

Tony Iommi

#56. The rocky time came right after I left school. I spent a lot of time at night navigating the streets of Paris trying to find something to eat.

Djimon Hounsou

#57. Some clever children don't discover how bright they are until after they've left school,' continued Mr Holcombe, 'and then spend the rest of their lives regretting the wasted years.

Jeffrey Archer

#58. I'm actually the last person to ask about school. I kinda ducked out at 12, before all that stuff might have happened. I left school after sixth grade and was basically home-schooled after that.

Emma Stone

#59. I have never done any other job. I have sung in bands since I was 15. I left school completely unqualified. I have no other training.

Alison Moyet

#60. You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which ... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit.

John Newcombe

#61. I only started concentrating on football as a career when I left school at 18. I played golf for the Scottish and British boys' teams.

Alan Hansen

#62. I was an excellent student before I left school. But I graduated early so that I could work longer hours on '90210.'

Jennie Garth

#63. When I was four, we had to choose a musical instrument to play at school, and I chose the cello. I played until I was 18, and although I found it nerve-racking to play solo, I loved playing in an orchestra. When I left school I didn't carry on with it, which I regret.

Emilia Fox

#64. I literally left school and went straight into music via art college for a year, and I've been so involved in my job of writing songs that the more actively involved part became channeled into standing on the stage and saying things that way.

P.J. Harvey

#65. When I left school, I got a job in a shoe shop and I used to save 15 quid a week and pay for my own singing and acting lessons.

Luke Evans

#66. When I turned 15, I left school having failed to make the minimum grade. With little direction I enlisted at the local culinary school. Here the academic demands were less rigorous.

Rene Redzepi

#67. I had tried to go to college, and I didn't really fit in. I went to a real narrow-minded school where people gave me a lot of trouble, and I was hounded off the campus - I just looked different and acted different, so I left school.

Bruce Springsteen

#68. It's been 35 years since I left school. Almost nine of them were in government; all the rest were in the private sector. And I've proven over time to be a great leader.

Joe Lhota

#69. I left school on my 15th birthday.

David Bailey

#70. Then I left school at 16 and worked in Perth Repertory Theatre, which was quite nearby where I lived. And I worked there for about six or seven months, as part of the stage crew.

Ewan McGregor

#71. A man's real education begins after he has left school. True education is gained through the discipline of life.

Henry Ford

#72. I decided to have a regular childhood and not pursue [acting] until I left school, although I wrote plays, directed plays, and got involved in theatre at school. When I left school I decided that's that I was going to pursue and gave it a crack.

Karl Urban

#73. I left school at 16 and skipped university to work, initially as a waiter. I think I missed out on what would have been great years.

Peter Mayle

#74. Journalists like to say I started off sweeping the pottery floors. But it was just a short-lived part time job doing that after I left school.

John Caudwell

#75. My dad was opening fast bowler for Yorkshire's second team and I couldn't believe he could die. He wasn't going to get better for at least six months, so I left school early to become the family breadwinner.

Brian Blessed

#76. I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 - in certain parts of the world anyway.

George Michael

#77. Born 4th January 1935. Left school at 16 with one 'O' level in geography ( so I know my way round the world), but continued my education at the University of Real Life, than which, you will agree, there is none better.

William Donaldson

#78. My father had left school at 18, without enough money to go to college - and, with four sons after the war, said he could still not afford to do so.

Nigel Hamilton

#79. When we left school, it was the early eighties. This country was on its knees. There were no jobs, none. If you couldn't go into Daddy's business, you emigrated or went on the dole. Even if you had the money and the points for college - and we didn't - that just put it off for a few years.

Tana French

#80. I began drawing when I was nearly 3, and after finishing the sixth grade, I left school to paint and was tutored at home. My father didn't think a formal education was necessary for a painter.

Jamie Wyeth

#81. I thought all I had to do was to buy a camera and become a film director. So when I left school I worked at a telephone company, which gave me the money to buy the basic equipment including the camera, the projector and the screen.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

#82. I wanted to write rather than do anything else. But 'cause I left school at 15, I didn't know what a noun was, still don't.

Nick Frost

#83. My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn't. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

Marco Rubio

#84. I had left school at 16, gone to stage school - and, until I was 22, I hadn't really played anyone but myself. Then in 1979, I made a film with Mike Leigh called 'Grownups,' which went out on the BBC, and overnight this new career opened up.

Lesley Manville

#85. Because I gave myself - I left school after the second semester of my junior year to pursue a career in music. and I gave myself five years to make it and I made it in three.

Ruben Studdard

#86. I left school at 16 and my mother got me a job as a trainee wine taster. But one day I followed some girls into St Martin's art school and saw a voluptuous woman sitting on a stool being sketched. I decided to get myself fired.

Malcolm McLaren

#87. I was involved in school plays, but when I left school I did a couple of odd jobs as a baker's apprentice and then as a fruit market porter in Manchester.

John Thaw

#88. When I was 13, I won a scholarship to boarding school. My parents let me choose whether to go, and I decided I wanted to. Afterwards, I went to Cambridge to study law - in a way, I was carrying the academic hopes of my family, as Mum and Dad left school at 14.

Stephen Mangan

#89. I was a commercial artist when I left school, but luckily I became an actor. I've painted for many, many years. Now the last few years it's gotten more serious.

Pierce Brosnan

#90. My Daddy was left-handed, and I was left-handed when I was little. In fact, I was left-handed all the way to high school. Then I switched over to right-handed cause I wanted to play shortstop.

Luke Appling

#91. I did a lot of thinking, and used mental activity to relieve whatever feelings I had. I became very left-brained, and I was good in school. That is, I was a smart kid.

George Carlin

#92. I said, "Is there!" I told him there is a Mafia school where they teach them math - if Johnny has ten fingers and they cut off two, how many does he have left?

Joan Rivers

#93. I've never had issues with popularity. I was always a popular guy ... I've always had friends and loved ones and everything, so it wasn't like, 'Oh man, I gotta fill some void that was left by high school.' I had a great high-school experience.

Jonah Hill

#94. My high-school coach Tony Reginelli was kind of famous for 'Reggie-isms,' kind of like 'Yogi-isms.' He always said if you want to be a good quarterback, when sprinting left you want to be amphibious and throw left-handed. I told him, 'You mean ambidextrous, coach?'

Peyton Manning

#95. 'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms.

Dianne Feinstein

#96. For twelve school years, every morning, she had turned left out the front door to get to work. Now the taxi turned right, spiriting her off in the opposite direction.

Margot Lee Shetterly

#97. The only thing at the back of my mind is longevity, and I'm really lucky that I've constantly been in work since I left drama school.

Conleth Hill

#98. I would rather be erring on the side of common-sense pragmatism and doing everything possible so that I felt that no stone was left unturned in terms of trying to protect school children.

John Larson

#99. We left my birthplace, Brooklyn, New York, in 1939 when I was 13. I enjoyed the ethnic variety and the interesting students in my public school, P.S. 134. The kids in my neighborhood were only competitive in games, although unfriendly gangs tended to define the limits of our neighborhood.

Irwin Rose

#100. I had a blog and was documenting my life as a college student in an art school. I had a few comments left by a few girls asking if I could do a tutorial on how I did my makeup. I didn't think my makeup was all that special, but I try my best to share whatever I can with my viewers.

Michelle Phan