My quote initially was “all or nothing” but I guess that seemed a bit odd so I changed it to a saying that I heard in a chatroom - “I am made of cheese”. I’m not sure what that means either.
We didn’t have quotes. Just a photo.
At my first high-school, we didn’t even have photos (of every kid). The photos were of kids in the swimming, athletic or footy team/s, the leads in the school production and some random camp pics. At my later school there was no yearbook at all until 1980.
(FTR, I attended very disadvantaged schools in Melbourne, and the money just wasn’t available to lay out on frippery like school yearbooks when equipment for the science lab or library was lacking).
I want to quite a privileged school, but even so the year book (or ‘school magazine’ as it was known) wasn’t a big thing. It just had class photos, sporting team photos, reports about the school musical etc. There were no individual photos of the students.
When it came out in the final week of the school year, the contest was always on to see who could find the most photos of himself.
Well there were only 18 year 12’s in the school when I finished. Also I was the “dux”. 
Ugh. I told them I didn’t want one, but they chose a random one instead. Which was identical to one someone else chose. :smack: It wasn’t really a thing there, and similar size to JohnClay (no idea what a dux is unless it was a Roman Republic school).
Dux of School (in Australia) was the student who topped the class academically.
And if there are two or more students tied at the top of the academic pile, they are - Latin geek alert - aeques duces.
Our yearbook didn’t do quotes either. They did have a space where you could predict your future. I said “Wandering spirit” which kinda, sorta came true, if you consider that I spent a lot of my Navy years traveling around. 
They didn’t fill in anything for you, tho, so a few people just had their names - no activities, no quotes, no nothing.
I graduated high-school in 1976, years before quotes were discovered.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
At first, I was like, “Why are only Aussies replying to this thread?”
Then I saw what time it had started.
Anyway, I wasn’t allowed a quote. We just got our photo along with any clubs or sports we had done. So mine said “OneCentStamp: wrestling, soccer, chess club, It’s Academic [our local high school equivalent to College Bowl].”
The school I went to was so small that graduating seniors each got an entire page upon which to spew their uncensored adolescent yearnings, rebellions, and affections. So a lot of the quotes, mine included, veered toward the emotional and lengthy.
All things considered I don’t think I chose too badly. Nearly 4 decades later, I stand by the quote I used, from Tennyson’s Ulysses:
I am a part of all that I have met
Yet all experience is an arch
Wherethrough gleams that untraveled world
Whose margin fades
Forever and forever
When I move.
(I may have messed up the line breaks, but take that as proof that I actually know the poem and am not Googling to find it.)
There was a committee of girls who had some nationally distributed book of about a thousand trite sobriquetx, and assigned one of them to each graduate. The only thing I remember about mine was that it was kinda dopey, and I presume was suited to a smart-alec nerd.
I might have a copy around somewhere to look it up. But I can guarantee that it was some pretentious adolescent twaddle.
Huh. Everyone didn’t have quotes, but we had a page for interesting quotes. Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of them, and I’m not quite sure where my yearbook is.
We had other features like “What are you most afraid of?” (One girl’s being ducks.), and constests like “Most likely to X.” So I just always assumed quotes were like those.
I wasn’t aware the OP went to high school.
Thank you for sharing this shortcoming in your own understanding of educational systems around the world.
I used:
“All through one’s life were the myriad days at school; while outside was Summertime under the skies.”
I may not have that exactly right. The quote is from J. P. Donleavy “Meet My Maker the Mad Molecule”
“Please excuse me, I have a boat waiting.” It’s part of a line from the 1965 movie, The Great Race. It’s a good exit line.