David Guterson Quotes

The worst problems for children stem from parental conflict, before, during, and after divorce or within marriage.

I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.

Pick a dysfunction and it's a family problem.

The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school.

I'm an entrepreneur and I love business. That's what I've always done. I went to school for that. My father took me out and said, 'You're gonna be here like everybody else.'

School, in general, was not great. Children are just mean to each other... but by high school, I probably stopped being annoying to people, and people stopped being mean. By the end of it, it was wonderful.

I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.

I didn't make any kind of grades in high school. My mother was a single mom, putting my three sisters through college, and I was such a bad student that I knew I had no right to take her money. But I loved being in classes and learning. I took in a huge amount of what I learned, but I had a feeling of always being behind and being in trouble.

Learn a language of another country and then you can go to that country: a place where the problems of your family will not follow. A language they do not speak.

There were times in school when a person had to do things fast, cheap, and without character.

I tell ya I got a stupid son. That's one load that shoulda been shot on the wall.

The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school.

Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it's the place where we find the deepest heartache.

Everyone in my family can sing - my momma can sing, my cousins. I was in the third grade and I was that kid who was so bad in school because I could sing.

I never read in school. I got really bad grades-D's and F's and C's in some classes, and A's and B's in other classes. In the second week of the 11th grade, I just quit. When I was in school, it was really difficult. Almost everything I learned, I had to learn by listening. My report cards always said that I was not living up to my potential.

I went to Princeton High School, when I was very serious about being an artist. I was in a theatre family but I didn't want to become an actor.

I wasn't one of those girls who always dreamed of being an actress. I went to a normal school and then these film auditioners turned up when I was nine. Then I just fell into this whirlwind. I had lots of times when I thought: 'Woah, woah, hang on - I'm not completely sure about this.' I didn't come from a background of films. I didn't even really ever watch films. The fact is, my parents weren't into that stuff, and neither was I.

Kids ... Can't live with 'em ... Can't shoot 'em!

I enjoyed [playing lawyer in From The Hip] as an ode to my dad. My dad went to Harvard and Harvard Law School, so he had some friends that practiced in Boston. So, there was a big law firm that he hooked me up with the senior partner, then the senior partner hooked me up with a young lawyer who worked in the firm. And the young lawyer was married to a public defender. So I would hang out with them, and I could see both sides of it, those that are corporate attorneys and those that help the poor and the disenfranchised.

Artemis: (shocked) Why, Doctor? This is a sensitive area. For all you know I could be suffering from depression. Doctor Po: I suppose you could. Is that the case? Artemis: (head in hands) It's my mother, Doctor. Doctor Po: Yes? Artemis: My mother, she... Doctor Po: Your mother, yes? Artemis: She forces me to endure this ridiculous therapy when the school's so-called counsellors are little better than misguided do-gooders with degrees.

Who does not recall school at least in part as endless dreary hours of boredom punctuated by moments of high anxiety?

The problem with education is school.

I was very much a mess, as a person. I'd come from a very turbulent teenage life, with parents who had broken up in a very bad way, and a lot of illness at school.

I didn't think I was good at anything, didn't do well in school. And then in the third grade, I was going to a public school. And the teacher was putting math problems on the board. And I said to myself - it's amazing how you can remember certain incidents at any age that made an impression - I asked myself why is she putting those up when the answers are obvious. And then I saw it wasn't obvious to anybody else in the class. So I said, "Hey, I'm good at something."