Tim Ferriss Quotes

I dropped out of high school when I was 16, after I had a huge argument with my English teacher over the meaning of the word 'existentialism.'

My life could have easily gone another way. But I had this one teacher who gave me direction and got me into performing. She got me into touring with an educational play called 'The Inner Circle' along with Pedro Zamora from MTV's 'The Real World.'

Most of my ambitions were seeded at St. John's. My time there was some of the best time I have spent on Earth thus far.

The only thing that mattered was what you were to do in life, and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching, or learning.

It was easy for me to leave acting for school, because I wasn't really in it as an adolescent for fulfilling reasons.

I went straight from high school to 'Gossip Girl,' and both were very structured, scheduled environments, so I never had freedom to explore and carve my own path.

I went to Goucher College in Maryland for the best possible reasons - to learn - but then I dropped out at 19 for the best possible reasons - to become a writer.

I was a student at SF State, and I honestly didn't know where I was headed. I thought maybe something in the social sciences. But I happened to be living with a group of people, and one person was a film student. I was always keen on and aware of what she was doing.

I can't say that dropping out of school at 16 to join the Marines was my best idea. On the other hand, maybe it was. Who knows?

College isn't in everyone's hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn't mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

I'd be satisfied just coaching in high school. I turned down a number of colleges when I was teaching in South Bend, Indiana, before I went into the service. I honestly believe that if I hadn't enlisted in the service, I would never have left high school teaching. I'm sure I would have never left.

Growing up, you tended to just go through school to get out, then figure out what you want to do in this big ball of mud.

I worked in a number of high schools in New York, and I wound up at Stuyvesant High School, which is known nationally for producing brilliant scientists and mathematicians, but I had writing classes. I thought I was teaching. They thought I was teaching, but I was learning.

If I had to do a lot of promotion as a kid, it would have been very intense. I'm really glad I got to go through high school, have a college experience, and have the last five years since then, just... being a person.

I grew up in Bridlington until I was 16, and I lived with my mum and my sisters. I finished school, got my GCSE's, and at the time I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I left home when I was just 17, finished up high school, and went to work.

The best decision I ever made was to drop out of school.

I wanted to be a teacher because that is all I knew. It was a great course on primary school education, in which I could specialise in music, but I ended up dropping out after I was honest with myself about what I really wanted to do with my life.

I had no aspirations beyond middle school except to wrestle, no reason to go into high school. This world is all I've known since 15 years of age.

When I got to 10th grade at Booker T. Washington High, I had a teacher, Miss Geraldine Nesbitt. I think she came from New York. She helped me begin to question things.

My dad, who had spent his life as a lecturer, said, 'That's all very well, but you need to earn a living, so why don't you teach?' I did, and 13 years later, I woke up.

The years between leaving school and actually becoming an adult are very important years. You make a lot of choices as to the type of life you want to lead and what type of person you want to be. There were so many people who had opinions of me, a lot of them very unflattering, that it was hard to make up my mind about who I was supposed to be.

I guess some of the most delightful moments of my teenage years were when I was trying not just to educate myself but trying to educate others. And I could see how the lives of children could be transformed in that.

Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned

We are the sum of who we are. We pick certain things at certain moments that influenced us.