Sami Gayle Quotes

My high school was a private school where you went to an Ivy League. That's just what was expected of you and nothing less. So I grew up never being okay with a 'B' because a 'B' was not good enough.

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

For exams, I swotted so hard because I couldn't bear the thought of not coming first.

It wasn't just OK to achieve in my family - it was expected.

I loved school, maybe too much, really. I was summa cum laude in high school. I was driven that way.

If I came home with a grade of A, my father would say, 'There must have been a lot of dummies in that class.'

I am never worried that I'm not gonna get my work done. I was the kid who got straight As and was a little too intense in school. Like, I am a perfectionist, and I am going to sit at the front of the class with my hand raised.

I went to college when I was 27, and somehow, between high school and college, I became obsessed with getting A's. I can tell you exactly how many non-A's I had, and tell you honestly that I cried every time!

I'm the type of person, I have to study to get an A on the test.

I've always been an A or B student. When I get a B, I freak out a little bit!

My parents were typical Asian parents, and they do, like all parents, want their children to be successful. They really encouraged my brother and I to study math and science, and that's what we did as kids.

In middle school and high school, I had straight A's, and I graduated at the top of my year. On the flip side of that, I struggled with very severe performance anxiety.

My parents are wonderful, practical, sensible people, and the expectation was that I would study something academic.

I support high academic standards. Period.

I had to get good grades and do well in school - my mother was an assistant principal and my father was a teacher - and they took this very seriously.

My parents don't press it but, you know, they're into good grades.

I went to Columbia University because I knew I wanted to go to a school that was academically rigorous. I prided myself on getting good grades, but I also hated it.

I went to a very academically competitive high school. So I was always quite studious and quiet, just to keep up with the other geniuses who were in my school.

Whatever the course, whether the course was boring or interesting to me, whether I was talented in mathematics or not talented in languages, my parents expected A's.

I was raised by a single mother, and she felt the Japanese education system, albeit wonderful, keeps you in a certain range. You have to be better than this level but below this level.

I was a very studious student and usually got A's. I did not like school, because I wasn't popular - I was a nerd.

I played every sport in high school for one year. If I couldn't be great at it, I quit. I would rather not do it than be average.

When I brought home a 98 percent on a test, my father would say, 'Ah, ah, where are the other two points? Go and get them, then bring them back.' My father and Nigerian culture has always stood for excellence.

I passed the 11-plus and went up to the senior school, where my two older sisters had already gone. I was in the 'A' stream, but in the third year, they asked me to give up Latin; no one had ever got 7 per cent before.

Asian American success is often presented as something of a horror - robotic, unfeeling machines psychotically hellbent on excelling, products of abusive tiger parenting who care only about test scores and perfection, driven to succeed without even knowing why.