The writer, Mark Twain, was fond of saying he never let his schooling get in the way of his education. This year's Leaving Certificate set could be forgiven for experiencing similar feelings.
The teachers' strike has reduced schooling significantly, but students cannot allow it to get in the way of their long-term education.
Nine days of teaching have been lost and, yes, there could be worse on the way, but students have no choice but to be stoic in the face of the uncertainty.
As the best actors say, the show must go on. Students have to presume normal service will be resumed in the school system shortly.
While teachers and the Government fight it out, students and their parents have to look beyond the clamour and think of what the next few months might hold in terms of college options.
The Central Applications Office (CAO) is not directly linked to the exam system and is proceeding in the normal fashion. While students are understandably sweating over the ASTI dispute, they have to pull themselves together and fill out their CAO forms before the deadline of February 1st.
Before they perform that relatively simple task (which unfortunately was too much for some bright sparks last year), there are a few important pointers for those taking their first ride on the points merry-go-round.
The first is that about 83 per cent of students will get an offer of a place. You may not like it, it may be slightly removed from what you wanted, but most of you will get something in the post in August, so don't fret too much.
Last year three-quarters of those getting a degree offer got one of their first three choices. Not a bad result, most would agree. Almost 90 per cent of those looking for a certificate/ diploma course got one of their first three choices.
All this proves that for most students the CAO experience is a happy one. But only if you truly put down what you want.
Read that sentence again. What you truly want. Not what your parents want, or your friends, or your teachers, but what you want, what you think you'd enjoy and what you think you would be good at.
What complicates this a little is that students are increasingly having to make more and more specific choices. In previous years, many courses were omnibus entry - meaning you entered courses under broad headings like engineering or arts and specialised later in your college career.
But now colleges, particularly the universities, are favouring denominated entry - meaning you can take a course immediately in a specific subject rather than just entering the faculty.
For example, years ago UCD offered a general entry into science. But now you can do computer science in its own right, or a degree in food science.
Sticking with UCD, it used to offer just an omnibus entry into engineering in first year, but now you can specialise straight off in civil, electronic, chemical or mechanical engineering.
While such changes are popular with academics, they can disadvantage students who are unable to manage when they are tied into extremely specialised disciplines from the outset of their college careers.
That is fine if you can cope, but if you cannot or the course turns you off, you may have to transfer elsewhere and that can be messy and disruptive. Many people have argued that 17- and 18-year-olds should not have to take such irreversible decisions at such a tender age, but it seems this trend of specialisation is here to stay.
While there are reservations, parents and students should keep their chins up and realise this is one of the best years ever to be applying to college.
Points are likely to go down in many courses (although the usual high-point suspects will remain) because of a drop in the number of school-leavers and an increase in the number of places.
Because of population changes it is hard to know who is more worried about third-level places nowadays - students or the colleges. It is a buyer's market at present.
Look at last year's points charts and notice the number of times the letters AQA appear; this stands for "all qualified applicants" and means those courses were offered to anyone with the basic entry requirements, regardless of points. It also means these courses could not fill all their places.
What this indicates is that many colleges - particularly in the institute of technology sector - are finding it hard to get the numbers. As the youth population shrinks, these colleges have been warned the situation could get worse.
But parents should not dismiss these courses just because they cannot fill all their places. Some of them are relatively new and interest has yet to solidify.
Another reason why some courses have the letters AQA after them is that they are offered at private colleges, where the State will not cover the fees. Fees can run up to £2,700 and, not surprisingly, this restricts interest.
So, while there is no shortage of places - last year 53,107 students from a pool of 63,451 got a CAO offer - everybody wants a place on a course which leads to a job.
The news on that front is also encouraging. The latest statistics from the Higher Education Authority show that last year only 1.5 per cent of third-level graduates were unemployed six to nine months after finishing college. So, in many ways, students should be very encouraged by the climate.
Nevertheless, while there are plenty of places in some areas, at the other end of the points spectrum the crowding towards options such as medicine, dentistry and other healthcare courses continues.
But while institutions such as the Royal College of Surgeons required students to get 600 points (six A1s) for their medicine scholarship course (RC 001) last year, this, like many medical or healthcare courses, was an exceptional points requirement. In fact, it was the highest requirement last year.
It's important to retain some perspective. In the CAO system healthcare courses such as medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine are the exceptions, not the norms.
According to the Points Commission report, only 2 per cent of all third-level admissions are for healthcare courses. It is surprising how tiny this figure is when one considers the hype and attention they attract each year.
One explanation for this might be that 22 per cent of those with points over 500 have medicine as their first option. With all these people crowding in for a place, it means points get lifted very high.
This raises the question of whether young people - feeling peer and, more crucially, parental pressure - plump for medicine because it has traditionally been a high-points course, rather than out of any sense of vocation.
The old cry among Leaving Certificate students of "make sure you use your points" still appears to have some currency. But using them to do a course you really have no interest in is not sensible, so a bit of honest introspection is advisable.