Irena Smith > Quotes

“failing in an ambitious undertaking—and delving into the reasons for failing—is far more interesting than succeeding.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“The hierarchies of shame in high school are at least as complex and unforgiving as those in an eighteenth-century Puritan hamlet,”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“College admission is arbitrary and howlingly unfair. As a matter of fact, it’s a lot like life.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“James Baldwin’s words—“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“I find the idea of a world without meaning terrifying. I studied literature and continue to read indiscriminately and greedily, like I'm sinking and books are a lifeline. Literature provides reassurance that the world is not a meaningless place. It offers a mirror and a shield, a reflection of my own lived experience and a promise that our struggles matter.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“No one wants to hear that you can do all the right things and not get into Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, MIT.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“Three months after Mara’s overdose, the pear tree in our back yard that has not yielded a single pear for ten years suddenly begins bearing fruit.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays