Homework Quotes

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“He's given me enough homework to last ten years. I'm gonna die of nerdism.”
― Mark A. Cooper, Absolutely Nothing

“The worst thing a kid can say about homework is that it is too hard. The worst thing a kid can say about a game is it's too easy.”
― Henry Jenkins

“Wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful life,” Ron sighed, as evening after evening they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“It's piles and piles of emotional homework forever if you ever want to qualify as a grown-up”
― Mary H.K. Choi, Emergency Contact

“Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, “Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Is this your holiday homework?" asked Sarah. "Don't do it, Rose! And Eve will write you a note to say it's iniquitous to give eight-year-olds homework. You will, won't you, Eve?"
"I could never spell 'iniquitous,' Sarah darling!"
"Hot concrete," said Rose mournfully, prodding her porridge.
"Write this," ordered Saffron. "'The ancient Egyptians are all dead. Their days are very quiet.' Porridge is meant to look like hot concrete. Eat it up.... Read the next question!"...
"What would you say if you bumped into Tutankhamen in the street?"
"'Sorry!'" said Sarah at once. "Put that."
"We have to answer in proper sentences."
"'Sorry, but it was your fault! You were walking sideways!”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Eventually the real world intruded again, and Sophie had to return to campus—woefully behind on homework, but incandescently in love.”
― Molly Ringle, Persephone's Orchard

“I do my precalc homework, and then when I'm done I actually sit with the textbook for like three hours and try to understand what I just did. That's the kind of weekend it is--the kind where you have so much time you go past the answers and start looking into the ideas.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“It’s been about a month since I stopped turning in homework. Life’s harder when you’re the only one who sees the actual gears of oppression at work—and I see no way out. Society has me in its machine.
I’m half-charged, half-concerned, half-awake.
Zonked.”
― Michael Benzehabe, Zonked Out: The Teen Psychologist of San Marcos Who Killed Her Santa Claus and Found the Blue-Black Edge of the Love Universe

“Many mothers and father return each evening from their paid jobs only to serve as homework monitors, a position for which they never applied.”
― Alfie Kohn, The Homework Myth

“My parents must have seen something in me that I missed. My teachers insisted that I didn’t apply myself… I know that I didn’t like doing the additional homework my parents gave me, so instead of being a scholar I became the class clown. Ouch! My grades, although passing, didn’t come near reflecting my potential. It was suggested that I was a bright child who just didn’t apply himself. Most of the time I received only “C” grades, although they should have been at least “B+” and perhaps by showing just a bit more effort I could have been an “A” student or better. Lazy, was the term they used, and for this reason they gave me lower grades. But nothing fazed me as long as I passed and was promoted with my class. Punishing me also didn’t work, and boxing my ears only made me more rebellious. It must have seemed futile to my parents, but they continued doing what they thought was right. Being defiant, I insisted that if they didn’t give me so much additional work, I would have more time for what was assigned. However, that was not to be.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One...."

“My mother worked as a saleslady at the well-known Five Corner bakery in Journal Square during the day. Her orders were that I do at least one page of homework for every one of my subjects before she came home. It didn’t matter what my teachers would assign, those were her rules and I didn’t dare to violate them! However, I usually allowed others to make the rules and then decide whether I would follow them. Turning on our small Bakelite radio, I would ignore my mother’s rules and listen to my favorite adventure shows.
“Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Superman, who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Tom Mix were my favorite daily half-hour radio programs during the week. Tom Mix was forever solving some mystery that I could help him with, since I had a decoder badge that cost only 10 cents, along with a box top from a Ralston Purina’s “Wheat Chex” cereal box. Since it tasted like straw, wanting to get a decoder badge was the only way I would eat this blah cereal for breakfast.
The radio shows were way too exciting, and my homework always took second place. When my mother finally came home and saw that I had not done my work, she would get quite upset and make me do twice as much, seated at the kitchen table where she could keep her eye on me. Being under her direct supervision wasn’t much fun, but I would sit there until she was satisfied that I had finished my assignments. My mother showed no mercy! If my father found out about my being lax, there would be hell to pay! For whatever reason, I never seemed to learn….
Oh, woe is me, woe is me…. I was in trouble again… No, I was still in trouble!”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One...."

“I regarded homework as a form of torture that the teachers would unleash on me.”
― Steven Magee

“Ye think work cannae be done drunk? Sometimes being drunk improves it.”
― Arwen Elys Dayton, Seeker

“Homework should be a swear word. Every time teachers say it, they should have to put money in a jar and then, when there's enough, they need to buy all the kids ice cream.”
― Rachel Inbar, Blue Sparkles

“Kavanagh continued his walk in the direction of Mr. Churchill's residence. This, at least, was unchanged,⁠—quite unchanged. The same white front, the same brass knocker, the same old wooden gate, with its chain and ball, the same damask roses under the windows, the same sunshine without and within. The outer door and study door were both open, as usual in the warm weather, and at the table sat Mr. Churchill, writing. Over each ear was a black and inky stump of a pen, which, like the two ravens perched on Odin's shoulders, seemed to whisper to him all that passed in heaven and on earth. On this occasion, their revelations were of the earth. He was correcting school exercises.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh

“A leap of faith may not happen with certitude, because those magic moments vanish, and our very human qualities of doubt and second-guessing rush in to fill the void... If you've done your homework, you'll see what's happening
and recover much more quickly than when you were less aware.”
― Helen S. Rosenau, The Messy Joys of Being Human: A Guide to Risking Change and Becoming Happier

“When I speak to teachers, it’s always remarkable to me how unaware they are of the research literature—especially young teachers or student teachers.” Yet when it comes to homework, most teachers are true believers.”
― Nancy Kalish, The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It

“That’s what 4.0 students do, they take on other projects. Things that seem like homework but are also fun. Because they are capable of that. They are capable of more than others.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“When you have done your homework and hard work then let God work on you so you become successful.”
― Aiyaz Uddin

“If homework can be a hobby it was, throughout elementary and middle and high school, primary among mine.”
― Miranda Popkey, Topics of Conversation

“Now that they are effectively under house arrest, what are kids doing with the time they used to spend playing? One study of this found that this time is now overwhelmingly spent on homework (which exploded by 145 percent between 1981 and 1997), screens, and shopping with their parents. A 2004 study found that U.S. kids spent 7.5 hours more each week on academics than they had twenty years before.”
― Johann Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again

“Funny, it being homework you’d think home would be where it’s supposed to be but no, I need it at school, but you can’t call it schoolwork because that’s just stuff you do at school but it really is schoolwork you do at home and then bring it back so you could call it school-home-school work but either way it’s not here and I need to get it from home and get it to school so home is where I need to go now.”
― A and E Kirk

“June.
Somehow the message had gone out to all the teachers that the last two weeks of school were the last opportunity to bury the students of Washington Irving junior High in work. Every other school in the country was getting ready for campouts and parties to celebrate the end of the year. But not us.”
― Schmidt, Gary D.

“In world history, Mr. McElroy was starting the Causes of World War I. You know how many Causes there were for World War I? No wonder they fought.”
― Schmidt, Gary D.

“I hated homework more than anything. It made my already exhausted children desperately frustrated and turned what could have been relaxing family time at the end of the day into teeth gnashing, paper crumpling, torture sessions.”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“I sat down before I could de something stupid, like trip on the math homework scattered all over my floor and fall out my window. Death by calculus. I couldn’t imagine a worse way to go.”
― Tiana Smith, Match Me If You Can

“Time was ticking right now. She had to read. This was the shortest of the six articles. She knew that because for the last hour, she had scrolled through all six, looking at how long they were and figuring out what to read first.”
― Maureen Johnson, Nine Liars

“What are you going to do?” Cindy asked as we walked home. “You can’t keep missing recess. We need you on our soccer team.”
“I can’t keep missing homework,” I added. “I’ll have all F’s on my report card.”
Cindy’s eyes got big. “Your parents will kill you.”
― Marcia Thornton Jones, Godzilla Ate My Homework