The World Is Waiting for You ─ Graduation Speeches to Live by from Activists, Writers, and Visionaries

"The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don't listen to them," acclaimed author and award-winning journalist Anna Quindlen cautioned graduates of Grinnell College. Jazz virtuoso and educator Wynton Marsalis advised new Connecticut College alums not to worry about being on time, but rather to be in time—because "time is actually your friend. He don't come back because he never goes away." And in 2012 renowned physician and humanitarian Paul Farmer revealed to former Delaware co-eds his remarkable discovery?the new disease Empathy Deficit Disorder?and assured the commencers it could be cured.

With more than a dozen contemporary graduation speeches that dissect the world as it is and imagine what it could be, The World Is Waiting for You brings forth the courageous people who've dared to transform the podium into a pulpit for championing peace, justice, protest, and a better world. The prescient, fiery feminism of Gloria Steinem sits parallel to science-fiction writer and embracer of darkness Ursula K. Le Guin, who asks, "What if I talked like a woman right here in public?" Legal and anti-poverty activist Bryan Stevenson enchants with stories of hope and unlikely triumph, while Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver asks those born into the Age of Irony to "imagine getting caught with your Optimism hanging out" and implores us always to act and speak the truth.

The World Is Waiting for You speaks to both the young and the old, anyone who might take to heart the advice of Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards—"life as an activist, troublemaker, or agitator is a tremendous option and one I highly recommend"—and is the perfect gift for all on the verge of moving their tassels to the left.

Tara Grove is the education editor at The New Press. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and lives in New York City.Isabel Ostrer is a recent graduate of Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They both went to college to figure out how they could make the world a more humane place to live.

List of Contributors/Speech Locations
Anna Quindlen Grinnell College, 2011 (Grinnell, Iowa)
Wynton Marsalis Connecticut College, 2001 (New London, Connecticut)
Barbara Kingsolver Duke University, 2008 (Durham, North Carolina)
Marian Wright Edelman Muhlenberg College, 2008 (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Noam Chomsky American University of Beirut, 2013 (Lebanon)
Toni Morrison Rutgers University, 2011 (New Brunswick, New Jersey)
Gloria Steinem Smith College, 2007 (Northampton, Massachusetts)
Tony Kushner Vassar College, 2002 (Poughkeepsie, New York)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Kalamazoo College, 2009 (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Paul Farmer University of Delaware, 2013 (Newark, Delaware)
Martha Nussbaum Connecticut College, 2009 (New London, Connecticut)
Oliver Stone UCLA, 2009 (Los Angeles, California)
Paul Hawken University of Portland, 2009 (Portland, Oregon)
Isabel Wilkerson Bates College, 2014 (Lewiston, Maine)
Howard Zinn Spelman College, 2005 (Atlanta, Georgia)
Cecile Richards Barnard College, 2014 (New York, New York)
Theodore Shaw Wesleyan University, 2014 (Middletown, Connecticut)
Ursula K. Le Guin Mills College, 1983 (Oakland, California)