In eighth grade, I pretty much didn't want to pass. I was 6'8'.' I was always bigger and stronger. I was getting triple-teamed, and the results weren't good. I wasn't helping my team. I was forcing shots. Then I started passing it out to my team, and they started hitting shots and slashing, and that's when things opened up for me.

Jahlil Okafor

In seventh and eighth grade, grammar and vocabulary were not my favorite subjects.

I think by eighth grade I knew I wanted to be an actor. I'd done church plays and stuff, but my first actual acting class was in eighth grade. I was obsessed with it.

Aaron Paul

Wit Wanted Want

I was one of those weird kids who didn't really speak or smile. I remember my teachers would call home and ask if everything was fine at home because I would never smile. Then I got into this phase, from maybe fourth to eighth grade, where my personality just did a 180.

Alessia Cara

Teacher Smile Home

It's very cool to be short, very cool. When I was in eighth grade, and the height I am now, I would just look at the cute little short girls and think, 'If only, if only.'

Alison McGhee

Cool Would Very

I was made fun of for being fat from fourth or fifth grade to eighth grade. That was pretty rough.

Ari Graynor

UN T Rough

I almost got kicked out of eighth grade for selling 'Playboy.'

Armie Hammer

T Selling Sell

California is the highest-tax state in the nation and has been for a long time. It has the highest-paid teachers in the nation, by far - $400 a month more than New Jersey - and yet California is the third lowest state on test scores for fourth and eighth grade English and math in the nation, and has been at the low level for a long, long time.

Arthur Laffer

Time Teacher West

I'm blessed because I had my mom as a teacher - sixth through eighth grade - and she is one of the best teachers I've ever had.

Bellamy Young

Teacher Mom Use

There's no medals for trying. This isn't like eighth grade where everybody gets a trophy. We are in a professional sport, and it is competitive to win. That's what we do.

Bill Belichick

Pet Yin Win

I'm in the eighth grade and am not the height of the rest of my class. But I don't worry about that. I'm just me!

Bobb'e J. Thompson

Worry Us T

I mean, I did a play when I was in eighth grade, but who hasn't?

Bria Vinaite

Who T Play

I've kissed in the rain so many times. I think one of my first kisses was in the rain. It was in Washington, D.C., with some kid named Dash, in eighth grade. It was in the rain.

Britt Robertson

Time Wit Washington

I was in eighth grade when I did my first Junior Theatre show. I was in 'Annie Get Your Gun' as a dancing Indian.

Casey Nicholaw

Your You UN

I used to be the class clown. I was the funny kid. That's why it was so hard for people to understand that I rap, because for a long time, they didn't take me seriously for who I was. By, like, eighth grade, I was really rapping.

Chance The Rapper

Time Funny Why

Back in eighth grade, I'd seen nothing but small-town Georgia when I left the U.S. for the first time and went to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China.

Chandler Massey

Time Town Tim

I went back to school for the end of eighth grade and for all of high school, which was awesome.

Chandler Riggs

Which T Some

I was not good in school. I could never read very fast or very well. I got tested for learning disabilities, for dyslexia. Then I got put on Ritalin and Dexedrine. I took those starting in the eighth grade. As soon as they pumped that drug into me, it would focus me right in.

Channing Tatum

Learning Good Art

At the fourth grade level, girls at the same percentages of boys say they're interested in careers in engineering or math or astrophysics, but by eighth grade that has dropped precipitously.

Chelsea Clinton

Car Age Us

I never went to high school. I never really finished eighth grade. I was kicked out of seventh grade once and eighth grade twice. Mainly for not showing up and not doing it. Then I went to an alternative high school for part of what would have been ninth grade and part of what would have been 10th grade.

Chris Cornell

Art Would Wing

My childhood neighbor played piano, and he told me we'd get all the girls if I learned how to play-and I was probably in eighth grade, going into high school, so I said, 'Sign me up.'

Christian McCaffrey

Up T Sign

I grew up in Sydney, Australia, and I started doing acting classes when I was in eighth grade.

Danielle Macdonald

It's a little crazy. Last year, I was in seventh grade, and we were the babies at the school - 'cause my middle school's eighth grade and seventh grade - and now I'm eighth grade, and all these new students have come in, and they're all like, 'Oh my gosh! Darci Lynne!'

Darci Lynne Farmer

My dad was the manager at the 45,000-acre ranch, but he owned his own 1,200-acre ranch, and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school, from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied, and he kept track of them for years for me. And that was my herd.

Dave Brubeck

I was a schoolteacher; I taught seventh and eighth grade, and I tried to write fiction on the side.

David Grann

As I got older, I'd say probably when I got to, like, seventh or eighth grade, I was living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, and I went for an open call for an agent, a local agent out there, a woman named Joy Purvis, and she ended up picking me up.

David Lambert

I want to talk about my very first play, when I was in eighth grade. One day, my English teacher, Mrs. Baker, announced that we were going to read 'On Borrowed Time' out loud in class. I was a mediocre student; I was terrified that she was going to call on me, so I hid my head.

David Morse

I grew up in Del Mar, Calif., north of San Diego. I got my first job the summer after eighth grade at a small Internet service provider.

David Ulevitch

Michigan's been recruiting me since the eighth grade, so they have a special place in my heart, I'd say, because I've visited there seven times, and my mom lives in Michigan, still, and she'd probably like me to stay closer to home and play.

Devin Booker

I've known my wife since we were 13 years old in eighth grade, and we kinda dated each other's best friends. The four of us always hung out, but I really wanted her. We dated around 17, but I was no way mature enough for her.

Dierks Bentley

My parents had the plan for my life from the moment my mother tested positive with me. Looking back now, I'd say the hard turn for me was when I left school after the eighth grade to play tennis full time and study some with a travelling tutor.

Douglas Brunt

My dad was a football player, and I've been the same size since eighth grade, so I get how it can be hard when you don't fit in with the 'normal-size' girls, or your butt and legs are too big for normal-size jeans.

Elana Meyers

I probably didn't talk in public until eighth grade, and then in high school, I started doing oral interpretation - kind of like monologues. Through theater and plays, I started coming out of my shell.

Emily Kuroda

I've always loved doing research. I remember doing a research project on the Babylonian numeral system in the eighth grade and thinking, 'This is pretty awesome - is this really a job you can have?' This led me toward a career as an academic, although it took me until college to realise that economics was the right field.

Emily Oster

Ever since the eighth grade, I can honestly say I cut out carbonated drinks from my diet and started focusing on hydrating my body well. It's a message that needs to get out, especially in the south.

Eric Reid

Something a lot of people don't know about me is I sucked my thumb until I was in like eighth grade. It's cause, when I was a baby, I sucked my thumb and I guess my mom and dad never weaned me off of that, because they thought it was cute. And then it's like an addiction. That's your security blanket.

Gabby Barrett

I actually think the last time I stood with a race medal around my neck was after an eighth grade cross-country meet. I was gawky and 65 pounds soaking wet, and running 10 miles a day was no big deal.

Ginger Zee

I grew up producing hip-hop music, actually. I was producing for my friends, who were all rappers in upstate New York, where I'm from. But in the eighth grade, we had this songwriting contest in our school, and I got really excited about it and actually won. After that, I just kept making music forever.

Gus Dapperton

I've loved vampires for a very long time. In eighth grade, I guess, my research paper was on vampires.

Holly Black

I've talked to a bunch of big men who told me they didn't really start playing basketball until seventh or eighth grade. That wasn't the situation with me.

Jahlil Okafor

In eighth grade, I pretty much didn't want to pass. I was 6'8'.' I was always bigger and stronger. I was getting triple-teamed, and the results weren't good. I wasn't helping my team. I was forcing shots. Then I started passing it out to my team, and they started hitting shots and slashing, and that's when things opened up for me.

Jahlil Okafor

I knew I was different when I was about six years of age but I just knew that I wasn't like everybody else. I mean I wasn't like the other kids. I didn't know what that was. But I guess it was when I was in seventh or eighth grade, I'm like, 'Hey, something's wrong here.'

James McGreevey

I was always a clown. In the eighth grade I won a city speech contest by doing an Eddie Murphy routine. I'm no good at public speaking, but if I can assume a role and speak as that person, then I'm fine. When I had to give a book report, I always did it in character.

Jason Wiles

Before the eighth grade, I probably went to seven or eight different schools.

Jeremy London

I never believed in pushing my kids. My dad was very unhappy I wasn't going to be a doctor, but I couldn't stand to see the sight of blood. And I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in seventh or eighth grade.

Jerry Reinsdorf

I could hear music playing in the background of works by certain authors, like Poe and Shakespeare. And I discovered Nikki Giovanni when I was in eighth grade. Her writing has a musical energy with pulse and rhythm, almost like jazz or hip-hop.

Jill Scott

In eighth grade, I was actually better in football. I played running back, wide receiver, and safety - just like Allen Iverson.

John Wall

I have been an Avengers fan since the middle 1960s. I grew up with them, and I've imagined a hundred different versions of an Avengers movie. I think I even have a script I wrote back in eighth grade, 'Avengers vs. the Mole Man.' Truly dreadful, but a work of love.

Jonathan Maberry

It's been a privilege to get to watch one of sports greatest athletes prepare and get to play with him; honestly... it's a dream. I remember being in eighth grade saying, 'I'm Tom Brady,' on the asphalt at recess, you know, playing football.

Julian Edelman

My mom was a beautician in her early days, and then my parents decided that one of them needed to go to school in order to build the future. So my mom started going to college when I was in eighth grade, and she graduated when I was a freshman in college.

Julie Sweet

I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer in eighth grade.

Julie Sweet