Memorable Graduation Advice From the Stars31 of 38
Jodie Foster to University of Pennsylvania's Class of 2006:
"What was my way? I wanted to be relevant, significant. I wanted my life to be meaningful. All I really loved was to tell stories, to find the hidden truths in the details of people’s lives. Well, what difference could that possibly make? I had no idea at the time how much of a difference it can make.
Yes, I tell stories and those stories have changed me, have cut me open and spilled me out, and connected me with the world around me in ways I could never have imagined. I have learned so much from them. What I have learned lives on in the food I make, in the way I treat my kids, the laws I uphold, the hand I outstretch, the rituals I cling to and pass along. Like the characters I have played, those women who endure terrible adversity and survive intact, victorious, heroic, I want to become better instead of worse, deeper, stronger, more truthful. With every choice I make in my lifetime I come a little closer to that goal. And perhaps in the process other women will be inspired by these portrayals to do the same. This is my way."
"What was my way? I wanted to be relevant, significant. I wanted my life to be meaningful. All I really loved was to tell stories, to find the hidden truths in the details of people’s lives. Well, what difference could that possibly make? I had no idea at the time how much of a difference it can make.
Yes, I tell stories and those stories have changed me, have cut me open and spilled me out, and connected me with the world around me in ways I could never have imagined. I have learned so much from them. What I have learned lives on in the food I make, in the way I treat my kids, the laws I uphold, the hand I outstretch, the rituals I cling to and pass along. Like the characters I have played, those women who endure terrible adversity and survive intact, victorious, heroic, I want to become better instead of worse, deeper, stronger, more truthful. With every choice I make in my lifetime I come a little closer to that goal. And perhaps in the process other women will be inspired by these portrayals to do the same. This is my way."