Boarding Schools Quotes

“Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“Not only was Miss Cribbe bearded, and always trying to get chummy with us like we we're her real children or something, but she had a disgusting incontinent springer spaniel called Misty, who was constantly sneaking in to the dorms and weeing on our duvets”
― Tyne O'Connell, Pulling Princes

“»Du bist Nummer 55«, sagt Marga. Manuela blickt auf zu der Nummer über ihrem Schrank. Eine schwarze 55. »Deine Kleider tragen die Nummer 55. Deine Schuhe gehören in die Stiefelkammer in das Fach 55, dein Mantel und dein Hut kommen unten neben dem Hauseingang in die Garderobe, Abteilung 55. Deine Waschkabine ist Nummer 55, ebenso dein Bett.«
Manuela fühlte, wie sie langsam zu Nummer Fünfundfünfzig wurde.”
― Christa Winsloe, The Child Manuela

“…one of those dreadful boarding schools. It was down on the South Coast. I think some very unpleasant things happened there…. So many lives were distorted by such cruelty. I know so many men who had to put up with that, so many….”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Novel Habits of Happiness

“How come you got to start making the bed the minute your feet hit the floor? You need to lighten up, girl. Live a little!' Then she'd laugh, delighted with herself and at my inability to be angry with her.”
― Lorene Cary, Black Ice: A Memoir

“Die Glocke reißt Gedankengänge ab in der Schulstunde, schneidet Plaudereien in der Pause auseinander, trennt Freundinnen im Garten, macht Herzklopfen vor unangenehmen Schulstunden, reißt einem die Tasse vom Mund beim Frühstück. Die Glocke ist Befehl. Unpersönlicher, gnadenloser, ewig gleichbleibender Ordner eines ereignislosen Daseins.”
― Christa Winsloe, The Child Manuela

“Calling people out their names is a bad habit the people of European descent seem to have. The one that takes the rag off the bush is how they went all the way to Africa and called nature out of its name...Victoria Falls, Leopoldville, Johannesburg, Lake Victoria, Lake Rudolf, Lake Albert, etc. The W.F.'s that came here did the same thing with the indigenous people living here...called them Indians; and years later missionaries, government officials, census takers, etc., "tidied up their records and account books by arbitrarily shortening or changing the names of their charges." "He Who Causes Fear" and "Brave Chief" suddenly became Indian Joe and Bob.”
― Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap by Verta Mae

“Edu Karo is an online platform that helps families connect with the best boarding schools in India. We provide all the information you need to make finding the right school easy and stress-free.”
― Edu Karo

“And then suddenly a bus or car arrives, full of strangers, usually white strangers, who yank the child out of the arms of those who love it, taking it screaming to the boarding school. The only word I can think of for what is done to these children is kidnapping.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“The kids were taken away from their villages and pueblos, in their blankets and moccasins, kept completely isolated from their families -sometimes for as long as ten years- suddenly coming back, their short hair slick with pomade, their necks raw from stiff, high collars, their thick jackets always short in the sleeves and pinching under the arms, their tight patent leather shoes giving them corns, the girls in starched white blouses and clumsy, highbuttoned boots-caricatures of white people. When they found out-and they found out quickly-that they were neither wanted by whites nor by Indians, they got good and drunk, many of them staying drunk for the rest of their lives.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Beating was the common punishment for not doing one's homework, or for being late to school. It had such a bad effect upon me that I hated and mistrusted every white person on sight, because I met only one kind. It was not until much later that I met sincere white people I could relate to and be friends with. Racism breeds racism in reverse.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman