[He said] “Mary, don’t be a fool, nobody’s asked you to speak publicly in seventy years and they’re not going to start now.”
ATTRIBUTION:
Mary Boyda (b. 1923), U.S. college student. As quoted in On Campus with Women, p. 2 (Spring 1993).
A seventy-year-old enrolled in college as an undergraduate, she was quoting her husband when he learned that she was taking a course in public speaking. He had initially threatened to divorce her if she pursued college study. Later, he became “supportive and enthusiastic.”
