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speak up, college

Ten of Our Favorite Commencement Speeches

Earlier today, in honor of the season (and Larry Tribe's "thank your parents for boning" NYU speech, at left), I shared my favorite commencement speech and asked for yours. We got some responses, people citing writers like Kurt Vonnegut, comedians like Jon Stewart, and captains of industry like Steve Jobs. What makes a good speech? There doesn't seem to be any one rubric. A successful speech can be a serious person being funny, a comedian with gravitas, a writer getting loopy, a businessman thinking deep. I guess the only essential "rules" for success are obvious: don't be boring, be insightful, and be as honest as possible. Hey! That sounds like graduation advice. After the jump, find ten, in no particular order, of our (and your) favorite commencement speeches. More »

3:37 PM on Thu May 15 2008
By Richard
8,545 views, 49 comments

Latest by LunaLaredo: My favorite graduation advice of all time: "There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved by pizza." -Daria Morgendorffer For full speech (it's at the end of the clip, haven't mastered this video clipping thing yet, but more »

Congratulations Graduates Graduation season means, among other things, commencement addresses that drunken, sleep-deprived kids will sleep through (apologies to Dr. Paul Farmer). But some are definitely worth listening to. Some speakers might want graduates to thank their parents for boffing, and others just want to be funny. The best commencement speech I've ever read is David Foster Wallace's Kenyon address in 2005. It was featured in The Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology the following year and is both funny and quietly profound. I often find myself saying "this is water, this is water" when feeling especially frustrated. Do you have any favorites? Let me know and I'll put a top 10 list together.

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