Quotes about Youth

I was very successful from a very early age, and I want to keep it.

I think young people really do care. They want to build their life on something that's solid and makes sense, that's rational, that's not built on mythology, make-believe and wishful thinking.

books we read, the people with whom we associate, the country and community in which we live, the nature of the work we do, the clothes we wear, the songs we sing, and, most important of all, the religious and intellectual training we receive in our early teenage years.

Generally, the youth just out of school seeks any job that can be found. He takes the first place he finds, because he has fallen into the habit of indecision. Ninety-eight out of every hundred people working for wages today, are in the positions they hold, because they lacked the definiteness

When I was a kid, I'd always tell myself if I ever grew up to have money, I'd help even more people than I do when I didn't have any money.

They held hands and knew that only the coffin would lie in the earth; the bubbly laughter and the press of fingers in the palm would stay aboveground forever. At first, as they stood there, their hands were clenched together. They relaxed slowly until during the walk back home their fingers were laced in as gentle a clasp as that of any two young girlfriends trotting up the road on a summer day wondering what happened to butterflies in the winter.

Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. AND THE BOYS. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. EVEN THEIR FOOTSTEPS LEFT A SMELL OF SMOKE BEHIND!

All he did from freshman year through sophomore was react -- sneer, laugh, dismiss, find fault, demean -- a young man's version of critical thinking.

My nature is a quiet one, anyway. As a child I was considered respectful; as a young woman I was called discreet. Later on I was thought to have the wisdom maturity brings.

And how sweet that would have been: the two of them back by the milk shed, squatting by the churn, smashing cold, lumpy butter into their faces with not a care in the world.

They did everything but slap each other, and finally they did that. What postponed the inevitable were loves forlorn and a very young girl in too tight clothes tapping on the screen door.

Maureen appeared at my elbow, and the boys seemed reluctant to continue under her springtime eyes so wide with interest. They buckled in confusion, not willing to beat up three girls under her watchful gaze. So they listened to a budding male instinct that told them to pretend we were unworthy of their attention.