TV Quote of the Day (‘The Big Bang Theory,’ on Being Beaten Up in School)

Dr. Sheldon Cooper [played by Jim Parsons]: “When one gets beaten up every other day in school, one of necessity develops a keen sense of hearing. Incidentally, one can get beaten up in school simply by referring to oneself as ‘one.’”— The Big Bang Theory, Season 3, Episode 23, “The Lunar Excitation,” original air date May 24, 2010, teleplay by Lee Aronsohn, Steven Molaro, and Steve Holland, directed by Peter Chakos

Quote of the Day (Christopher Buckley, on Parents’ Dread of Science Projects)

“No phrase strikes more terror into the heart of a parent today than ‘Science Project.’ Notwithstanding, a few weeks into the start of term your spouse will cheerfully announce to you—in child’s presence, so as to preclude any protest on your part—the ‘wonderful’ news that your child has selected you, specifically, to be his ‘partner’ in the aforementioned exercise. (Refrain from stabbing spouse with fork under the table; there will be plenty of time in which to express your rage, betrayal, and other emotions.) You are now expected to devote all your ‘free’ time over the next six weeks to devising a miniature version of the particle accelerator at CERN, in Switzerland, a home video explaining string theory using cooked spaghetti, or erecting a model of the human genome using 3.4 trillion Styrofoam balls (available at Wal-Mart). Unfortunately, the days are past when science projects could without embarrassment consist of store-bought ant farms (minus ants); hastily drawn cardboard charts showing how fast ice melts when immersed in a mixture of five parts gin, one part vermouth; a model of Sputnik using a Ping-Pong ball and two toothpicks; or a malodorous dish of dead tadpoles proving scientifically once and for all that amphibians cannot be left indefinitely on a hot radiator. In extremis, a project can be built around parent’s recent hospitalization for exhaustion.”— American satirist Christopher Buckley, “Homework: A Parent’s Guide,” in Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from “The New Yorker,” edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder (2001)

Quote of the Day (Muriel Spark, on a Most Unusual Sunset)

“There was a wonderful sunset across the distant sky, reflected in the sea, streaked with blood and puffed with avenging purple and gold as if the end of the world had come without intruding on everyday life.”—Scottish novelist Muriel Spark (1918-2006), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

The centennial of her birth has come and gone, but I couldn’t let 2018 depart without a post about Muriel Spark. She wrote much throughout her career, but—at least partly due to the 1969 film starring Maggie Smith (pictured here)—The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is her most famous.

The quote you see here gives a marvelous impression of her style, but what it cannot do is give a sufficient idea of the treasures of the novel—very much including its unreliable narrator. For anyone considering education as a profession, it offers a morally stringent view of how teachers can form—and, as in this work, deform—the young. And it demonstrates convincingly that, no matter how the merits of a film (or, in this case, a play, too), a novel has pleasures unrivaled by visual media.

Quote of the Day (Andre Dubus, on Shyness at School)

“Proportion is all; and, in sports at school, I lost it by surrendering to the awful significance of my self-consciousness. Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.”— American short story writer, essayist, novelist and memoirist Andre Dubus (1936-1999), “Under the Lights,” in Broken Vessels (1991)

Quote of the Day (Mel Brooks, on the Childhood Trauma of Homework)

“The happiest time in my life was the first nine years. Why nine? What happened at nine? Homework! They harnessed me . . . They wanted something back — for my just playing in the streets and eating chocolate pudding.” — Writer-director-actor Mel Brooks quoted in Henry Mance, “Back in the Saddle,” Financial Times, Feb. 17-18, 2018

Quote of the Day (Comic Kate Mason, on How School Didn’t Prepare Her for Life)

“Nothing I learned in school prepared me for life. My first book should have read, ‘See Dick balance his checkbook. See Jane leave an unhealthy relationship. Run, Jane, run!’” —Stand-up comic Kate Mason, quoted in “Laugh Lines: Class Clowns,” Reader’s Digest, September 2015