Quotes about boys
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“Forgiveness doesn't sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up a hill.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“Not that he regretted having killed the guy in Stockton. The one who'd been ready to shoot him over the five crumpled dollar bills in his jeans pocket. He was quite happy to have sent that particular home boy to hell.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Visions

Guy, Home, Hell, Happiness

“In wars, boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Thom Merrilin
(15 January 1990)
Source: To the Blight

War, Fools

“Pink is female - but why? Are girls any more pink than boys? Are boys any more blue than girls? It's something that has been sold to us, mostly so other things can be sold to us.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Girl

“Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you've ever heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn't win.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Girl

“The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Girl

“One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other. They pulled out their swords and shot one another. One deaf cop, on the beat heard the noise, and came and shot the two dead boys.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

Fight, Night, Dead

“You don't need to show off your body to catch a boy's eye. You'd best learn that early on, or you'll be bringing home the worst sort of boy.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Home, Learning

“The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were suppose to fall at their feet? Unacceptable.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

World, Girl

“My sister, who never understood most of the things I wanted her to, might have been able to understand what had happened to me in this summer of weddings and beginnings. And she was right. The first boy was always the hardest. page 40000”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer (1996)

Understanding, Sister, Wedding, Summer

“A little boy who's discovered the monster under the bed is actually real, and it's screwing Mommy.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Killing Dance

Source: The Killing Dance

“You look like a boy who has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge and doesn't like the taste.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Warrior Heir

Knowledge, Tree

“Sometimes when I'm alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena. To make myself put a name to the thing I've lost. But what's the use? It's gone. He's gone. Whatever existed between us is gone. All that's left is my promise to kill Snow. I tell myself this ten times a day.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (p. 195)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

Kiss, Strong, Time, Training

“As a ten-year-old boy, the Thief of Eddis could stop a grown man in his tracks with a single look. Where had that look gone?”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

“Please, I'm a transgender former boy-bander. You think I don't know how to defend myself?”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Thinking

“You have to sleep sometime. (Xypher)
So do you. (Julian)
Down, boys, down. Please, I just want to be free before I get testosterone poisoning. (Simone)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Sleep

“Be careful what you’re doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Girl

“Dead girl walking” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secrets” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
"I am that girl. I am the spaces between my thighs, daylight shinning through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Secret, Girl, Dead

“So let me get this straight. You were living in a tent in the woods, but now you're living with Prince Charming and anger management boy? SERIOUSLY?!”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

Anger

“Raise boys and girls the same way.”

Jenny Holzer (1950) American conceptual artist

Way, Girl

“They took a baseball bat
and whacked open his head.
Mummy Boy fell to the ground;
he finally was dead.
Inside of his head
were no candy or prizes,
just a few stray beetles
of various sizes.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Dead

“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Prologue (p. 5)
Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999)
Context: “Heed the lesson there, son.”
“What lesson?”
“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”
“I want to be a soldier. A hero.”
“You’ll grow out of it.”

Life, God, World, Decision

“I wonder, though…what would it be like? To be that close to a boy and have him see all of you, no holding back.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“Boys don't cry, but men do.”

Malorie Blackman book Boys Don't Cry

Source: Boys Don't Cry

Men, Cry

“Alabaster, you told me earlier that heroes don't die. You may be right, but I can tell you one thing." Claymore looked the boy in the eyes. "I'm not a hero.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

“Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Music

“I’m not leaving,” Sam said, his eyes fixed on the boy he was holding. “Not until Disney Princess here apologizes, or his head comes off, one of the two.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: The Dead Girls' Dance

Princess

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

“He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Heartbreaking, Time, Heart, Cry

“He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

“Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Love, Books

“He was getting that look he gets, oh boy, like Here comes Moses tromping down off of Mount Syanide with ten fresh ways to wreck your life.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Life, Way

“You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

“As my mother once said: The boys throw stones at the frogs in jest.
But the frogs die in earnest.”

Joanna Russ book The Female Man

Part 8, Chapter 10 (p. 196)
Source: Fiction, The Female Man (1975)

“I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy…”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Kiss, Reading, Dance, Night

“Boys never believe I can beat them, she told me back then. But I always win in the end.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

“It’s all right,” the boy murmured as he felt her trembling. “My grandmother always told me ‘Never try to turn back on a new road—you don’t know what adventures await you.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Devil in Winter

“A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything.”

Khaled Hosseini (1965) novelist

“The Bagshaws aren't boys. They're bombs with very colorful fuses.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Perfect Scoundrels

Color

“Nate: “And,” he said, “boys at twelve aren’t exactly slick with the ladies.”
Ruby: “’Slick with the ladies’?” I said. “Are you twelve?”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

“Boy," Annabeth interrupted, "I'm sure you both would've been wonderful at killing each other. But right now you need some rest.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“You don’t knock on the devil’s door, boy, unless you want him to answer. (Ravyn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

“That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World, Personality, Perfection

“The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

People, School, Football

“The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.”

Sinclair Lewis book Elmer Gantry

Source: Elmer Gantry (1927)

Star, Light, Universe, Personality

“Most people believe me when I lie. I've learned how to say the words just right. I have a trusting kind of face. But the boy in front of me was a trained operative, so Zach knew better. And besides, Zach new me.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

People, Lie, Learning, Training

“Isn't wine prohibited here?" the boy asked. "It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil," said the alchemist. "It's what comes out of their mouths that is.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: It's not what enters men's mouth that is evil," said the alchemist. It's what comes out of their mouths that is.
Source: The Alchemist

Men, Wine, Evil

“I'd learned myself by the age of sixteen that just as girls guarded their virginity, boys guarded something less tangible which they called Themselves.”

Joyce Johnson (1935) American novelist, short story writer, memoirist

Source: Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

Age, Girl, Learning

“Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
Wes: “How do you win?” he asked
Macy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Truth, Question

“Achamian tossed his hands skyward in dismay. “Foolish boy! How many faiths are there? How many competing beliefs? And you would murder another on the slender hope that yours is somehow the only one?”

R. Scott Bakker (1967) Canadian writer

Faith, Hope

“Whoa, boy, he told himself. Golden Rule for Demigods: Thou shalt not Hokey Pokey with psychos.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

“Boys! Are they always this impossible? Do they always say cryptic, indecipherable things? (Note
to self: work with Liz to adapt her boy-to-English translator into a more mobile form—like maybe a
watch or necklace.)”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

“You need to stop thinking with your head, Mud Boy, and start thinking with your heart.”

Artemis sighed. The heart was an organ for pumping oxygen-rich blood to the cells. It could no more think than an apple could tap-dance.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Thinking, Heart, Dance

“I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Love, Time

“Isabelle and Sebastian? Hardly. Sebastian’s a nice guy – Isabelle only likes dating thoroughly inappropriate boys our parents will hate. Mundanes, Downworlders, petty crooks…”
“Thanks,” Simon said. “I’m glad to be classed with the criminal element.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Hate, Guy, Parent

“But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is ialways the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer (1996)
Context: Maybe not, she said as we came to the car. But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.

Love, World, Way, Hurt