English Major Quotes:

I did try to go to college and try to be an English major.

- Hamish Linklater

source: "Hamish Linklater Stops Time, Fights Aliens, Discovers The Future". Interview with Gillian Mohney, www.interviewmagazine.com. July 15, 2011.

topic: College, Trying, English Major

She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.

- Jeffrey Eugenides

topic: Reason, English Major

I was an English major.

- Jenna Bush

topic: English Major

Finding a technical cofounder would have been difficult for me. I was an English major and didn't know any computer programmers.

- Jessica Livingston

source: "The Advice For Any Woman Who Wants To Found A Startup" by Jessica Livingston, www.businessinsider.com. January 31, 2011.

topic: Computer, Difficult, English Major

I was an English major in college!

- Maggie Siff

topic: College, English Major

I was an English major, so I love discussing possibilities and alternate theories.

- William Mapother

source: "Going on From Lost, Actor William Mapother Heads to Another Earth". Interview with Brad Balfour, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 18, 2011.

topic: Possibility, Theory, English Major, Discussing

I read good. I was an English major.

- P. J. O'Rourke

topic: English Major, Majors

Not Shakespeare. In college I took a Shakespeare class because I was an English major, and they had a Summer program called Shakespeare at Winedale, which is out in the German Hill country in Texas , where you go out and live for two months and then you perform three plays at the end of that time.

- Jenna Bush

topic: English Major, Majors

Being an English major prepares you for impersonating authority.

- Garrison Keillor

topic: Authority, English Major, Majors

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

- Stephen Ambrose

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Successful, Numbers, Secret, English Major

I was an English major in college with minors in Fine Arts and Humanities.

- Sue Grafton

topic: Art, College, Humanity, Fine Arts, Arts And Humanities

I had higher math SATs than in English - yet I became an English major in college.

- Christie Hefner

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Math, College, Sat, English Major

I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer

- Fred Savage

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Writing, School, Thinking, Angelou, English Major

I didn't know shorthand either. This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter. The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.

- Sylvia Plath

topic: Mother, Jobs, College, Plain English, English Major

More than anything, being an English major made me more appreciative of authors and what an incredible feat it is to just finish a novel, let alone a really brilliant one.

- Dan Mangan

source: Source: www.songfacts.com

topic: Brilliant, Incredibles, Appreciative, English Major

I do tend to be an analyzer. I'm an old English major from way back, so I do have fun tearing apart texts and trying to find the hidden secrets and the subtexts in there.

- Cynthia Nixon

topic: Fun, Secret, Trying, Subtext, Tearing Apart

I honor English majors. It's a dumb thing to major in. It leads nowhere. It's good to be dumb, it allows us to love something for no reason. That's the best kind of love.

- Natalie Goldberg

source: Natalie Goldberg (2011). “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life”, p.131, Open Road Media

topic: Dumb, Honor, Kind, Dumb Things, English Major

As an English major I was familiar with the stories of dozens of writers trying to get their work done among the multifarious diversions of the world and the hurdles of their own vices. A professor had said that what saved writers is that they, like politicians, had the illusion of destiny that allowed them to overcome obstacles no matter how nominal their work.

- Jim Harrison

topic: Destiny, Trying, Dozen, English Major

Maybe because I began as a writer, I have a good ear for dialogue, and maybe being an English major - and that I also read a lot as a kid - if I hear somebody say something that I think's funny, or I find a situation or story, I'll try to work that into the movie.

- Owen Wilson

source: Interview with Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, www.interviewmagazine.com. January 15, 2016.

topic: Kids, Thinking, Trying, English Major

In the beginning of college I wanted to be an English major, but then I became interested in international relations.

- Nick McDonell

topic: College, Relation, Wanted, English Major

My wife, the actress Megan Mullally, was an English major at Northwestern University and loves fiction. Like so many things in my life, she curates things for me. For example, I have the daunting prospect of Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" waiting for me when I get through my current reading pile.

- Nick Offerman

topic: Reading, Wife, Waiting, Goldfinches, English Major

As a former English major, I am a sitting duck for Gift Books, and in the past few years I've gotten Dickens, Thackeray, Smollet, Richardson, Emerson, Keats, Boswell and the Brontes, all of them Great, none of them ever read by me, all of them now on a shelf, looking at me and making me feel guilty.

- Garrison Keillor

topic: Book, Past, Years, Dickens, English Major

The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural for them to despise science fiction.

- Kurt Vonnegut

topic: Hate, War, College, Quads, English Major

When I was in college, I was an English major, but I was part of this great group at Stanford called the Company. We didn't know any better, so we did it all; we did King Lear, we did Hamlet, new plays ... And we did it all in a covered wagon that we took around the Bay Area. We all put our makeup on in one cracked mirror. It was the most fun I've ever had.

- Sigourney Weaver

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Fun, College, Makeup, English Major

I like to say I had a very varied undergraduate education. I was an English major first, and then at the end of my college career I decided I was interested in urban planning. I became an urban studies major, with a minor in poetry. I don't think I knew what I was looking for in my early twenties, but I know I kept not finding it.

- Ayana Mathis

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: College, Thinking, Urban, English Major, Urban Planning

My roommate in college in Austin, Texas, was Wes Anderson. Wes always wanted to be a director. I was an English major in college, and he got us to work on a screenplay together. And then, in working on the screenplay, he wanted my brother, Luke, and me to act in this thing. We did a short film that was kind of a first act of what became Bottle Rocket.

- Owen Wilson

source: Interview with Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, www.interviewmagazine.com. January 15, 2016.

topic: Brother, College, Texas, Short Films, Austin Texas

The only reason I acted in school was because of the community. I was in the chorus of every play and was never the lead other than one time, but to me it was about the community. I was an English major and my whole goal was to be an English teacher and was lucky enough to get into the playwriting group. The whole experience I had at Brown was eye opening and the most mind-bending experience.

- John Krasinski

source: Source: www.lasplash.com

topic: Teacher, Eye, School, English Major

I can be a bit of a science geek. I tend more towards reading about brain science, neuroscience.

- William Mapother

source: Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

topic: Reading, Brain, Geek, English Major, Brain Science

I was an English major in college, I went to a creative-writing program, and all my life, I really read and thought about fiction as a craft and an art form. I feel like I know a lot about it, and can trust my instincts.

- Tom Perrotta

source: Source: www.avclub.com

topic: Art, College, Instinct, English Major

If you look at Iraq and Afghanistan's situations, they are quickly becoming much like our reservations. They will have puppet governments funded and controlled by a U.S. Government that siphoned off their resources. You don't have to be an English major to read the writing on the wall; I am in here as a warning to others, just like those men who are in Guantanamo are a warning to others - if you stand up to us you face these same consequences.

- Leonard Peltier

source: Source: montanapioneer.com

topic: Wall, Writing, Men, Writing On The Wall, English Major

I was an English major at UCLA when I was 18, and then I left after a year to start acting. I was educating myself during that time.

- James Franco

topic: Ucla, Years, Acting, English Major

I have no scientific training at all. I was an English major in school. Everything I learned about science I've learned as a journalist would, finding out what I needed to know.

- Michael Pollan

topic: School, Training, English Major

On behalf of the newspaper industry I wish to announce some changes we're making to serve you better. When I say 'serve you better,'' I mean 'increase our profits.' We newspapers are very big on profits these days. We're a business, just like any other business, except that we employ English majors.

- Dave Barry

topic: Mean, Wish, Newspapers, English Major

During his weekly address to the nation, President Obama discussed higher education and said, 'The most important skill you can sell is your knowledge.' Or as English majors working at Starbucks put it, 'No it's not.'

- Jimmy Fallon

topic: Skills, Important, President, Higher Education, English Major

I was an English major in university and that got me into novels, but I read a lot of books as a kid.

- Dan Mangan

source: Source: www.songfacts.com

topic: Book, Kids, Novel, English Major

What? It's my job as best friend to make sure he's not a serial killer.  Or an English major, not sure which one's worse.

- Shelly Crane

source: Shelly Crane (2011). “Significance: A Significance Novel”, p.205, Kiss Me Publications, LLC

topic: Jobs, Serial Killer, Killers, English Major

I was an English major in college, took a ton of creative writing courses, and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years.

- Jennifer Weiner

source: Source: www.avclub.com

topic: Writing, College, Years, Newspaper Reporters, English Major

Absolutely, but let me qualify that - I consider myself an authentic feminist. Not as defined by the modern movement. And, let me clarify that a little bit more. I was an English major, so break it down: -ist means one who celebrates. As a feminist, I celebrate my femininity.

- Christine O'Donnell

topic: Mean, Feminist, Movement, English Major

I was an English major in college, though I ended up getting my degree in "General Stduies" because my grades were too bad to qualify for an English degree.

- Josh Lieb

topic: College, Degrees, Grades, English Major

We English majors...need to promote public libraries as a tool in the war against terror. How many readers of Edith Wharton have engaged in terroristic acts? I challenge you to name one...Do we need to wait until our cities lie in smoking ruins before we wake up to the fact that a first-class public library is a vital link in national defense?

- Garrison Keillor

topic: War, Lying, Book, English Major

I was an English major at the University of Minnesota, and I was very shy, which many people misinterpreted as intelligence. On the basis of that wrong impression, I became the editor of the campus literary magazine.

- Garrison Keillor

topic: Editors, People, Shy, Wrong Impression, English Major

There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

- David Brin

topic: Writing, Doubt, Training, Differential Equations, English Major

I was an English major in college, and then I went to graduate school in English at the University of North Carolina for three years.

- Elizabeth Edwards

topic: School, College, Years, Carolina, Graduate School