- ANNA QUINDLEN'S COMMENCEMENT SPEECH MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE MAY 23, 1999 I look at all of you today and I cannot help but see myself twenty-five years ago, at my own Barnard commencement. I sometimes seem, in my mind, to have as much in common with that girl as I do with any stranger I might pass in the doorway of a Starbucks or in the aisle of an airplane. I cannot remember what she wore or how ...www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/oped/Quindlen.shtml