Quotes about young
page 8

“When you are young, there are many things which appear dull and lifeless. But as you get older, you will find these are the very things that are most important to you.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book An Artist of the Floating World

Source: An Artist of the Floating World

Appearance

“She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Men, Smile, Time

“I do not have any other way of saying it. I think it happens but once and only to the very young when it feels like your skin could ignite at the mere touch of another person. You get to love like that but once.”

Pat Conroy book Beach Music

Source: Beach Music

Love, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Sir Impey Biggs: Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Clouds of Witness

Source: Clouds of Witness (1926)

Time

“The young always have the same problem — how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this problem by defying their elders and copying each other.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 19

Problem, Time

“One could argue that it's romantic to die for love. Of course, then you're dead and unable to take that honeymoon trip to the Alps with all the other fashionable young couples, which is a shame.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Love, Fashion, Dead

“When you're older you'll know what people who love suffer. The agony. It's better to be cold and young than to love. It's happened to me before but never like this - so accidental - just when everything was going well.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Love, People, Suffering

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life, World, Literature, Sense

“You will wake only if kissed by a young man who is truly your love, truly your destiny, one who would walk miles and face torturous tests to find you.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Love, Kiss

“We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young.”

Margaret Atwood book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

“I don't feel that way anymore," Nico muttered. "I mean… I gave up on Percy. I was young and impressionable, and I-I don't…”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Way, Feeling

“When I go around and speak on campuses,
I still don't get young men standing up and saying,
How can I combine career and family?”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Men, Family

“I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence.”

Evelyn Waugh book Vile Bodies

Source: Vile Bodies

Hunger, People

“Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

Happiness, Thinking, Heart

“The Night is young
& full of rest
I can’t describe
the way she’s dress’d
She’ll pander to some strange
requests
Anything that you suggest
Anything to please her guest.”

Jim Morrison book Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison

Source: Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison

Way, Night

“My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! Just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agreeable, too young to die.”

Jane Austen book Lady Susan

Source: Lady Susan

Age

“Oh, my dear! I’m afraid you’ve mistaken
me for someone else! My name is Rhea Silvia. I was the mother to Romulus and Remus, thousands of years ago. But you’re so kind to think I look as young as the 1950s.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Thinking

“One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

Way, Imagination

“It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material posessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have no self-respect.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Men, Heart

“A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

People, Youth, Fashion, Reading

“When I was twelve, a fortune teller told me that my one true love would die young and leave me all alone.. Everyone said she was a fraud, that she was just making it up.. I’d really like to know why the hell a person would make up a thing like that.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Love, Hell, Fraud, Personality

“Then Thalia Grace became their leader and started recruiting even more young women to their cause, which grated on Nico – as if Bianca’s death could be forgotten. As if she could be replaced.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Death, Women

“The young gentleman is correct," he said.
Halt raised an eyebrow. "He may be correct, and he is undoubtedly young. But he's no gentleman."

~Halt and General Sapristi speaking of Will”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“Max Ernst died the 1st of August 1914. He resuscitated the 11th of November 1918 as a young man aspiring to become a magician and to find the myth of his time.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in 'Some Data on the Youth of M. E., As Told by Himself' in the w:View (April 1942); also cited in Max Ernst and Alchemy (2001) by M. E. Warlick, p. 17
Max Ernst refers to his serving-period on the Western and then on the Eastern front during World War 1 (1914-1918)
1936 - 1950

Time

“I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.”

Louise Penny book A Fatal Grace

Source: A Fatal Grace

Life, Wisdom, Pain, Age

“Its important to know stories. I felt the earth shift to make a place for you when you were born, and I came to tell you stories while you are young. And like me, you were born with a word on your tongue.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

“That the young rich smell the stink of the poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise it would be too terrifying.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Learning

“If you’re really hard up, I can introduce you to my grandmother. She’s a fan.” Adam blinked. “She doesn’t typically sleep with pretty young things, but she would make an exception in your case. You might even learn a trick or two.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

Sleep, Learning

“There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can't sit over their wine; they can't play at wist; and they can't pay a lady a compliment.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Men, Wine

“Young people want mirrors. Older people want art.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Source: Burnt Tongues

People, Art

“Young lady," Silk said urbanely, "I think you'd be amazed at how little Polgara's concerned about who you are."
"Polgara?" Ce'Nedra faltered. "Polgara? I thought you said that she was your sister."
"I lied," Silk confessed. "It's a vice a have.”

David Eddings book Queen of Sorcery

Source: Queen of Sorcery

Thinking, Sister

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Men

“Maybe all young men who love us become knights in shining armor when we love them back.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: Golden: A Retelling of Rapunzel

Love, Men

“Young. Old. Just Words.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

“Pardon all runners,
All speechless, alien winds,
All mad waters.

Pardon their impulses,
Their wild attitudes,
Their young flights, their reticence.

When a message has no clothes on
How can it be spoken.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Water, Madness, Clothes

“In a way, it is beautiful to be young and hard up. With the right wife, and I had her, deprivation became a game.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

Beauty, Way, Game

“So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Books, World, Hope, Strong

“Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Summer Moonshine

Source: Summer Moonshine (1938)

Spring

“Young lovers see a vision of the world redeemed by love. That is the truest thing they ever see, for without it life is death.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

Love, Life, Death, World

“We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Life, Baby

“You will find a way to live without me. You will find a way to live for both of us,' Alexander said to Tatiana as the swelling Kama River flowed from the Ural Mountains through a pine village named Lazarevo, once when they were in love, and young.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Love, Way, Mountain

“Unfortunately, my army consists of one unreliable criminal, one girl with a
disability, and one incredibly foolish young vampire with a tanning issue. I am not confident.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

Confidence, Girl

“It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 22 : Artistic Attempts

Women, Men, People, Learning

“And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside
a book and never come out again? I loved reading so much I wanted
to be a part of it, and there were some books I could have stayed in
for ever.”

Peter Ackroyd (1949) English author

Source: First Light

Love, Books, Reading, Parting

“If you still think you're a young pup then you are, no matter what the calendar says”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

Thinking

“young or old, good or bad, I don't think anything dies as slow and as hard as a writer.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Thinking

“All geniuses die young.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“In your pursuit of your passions, always be young. In your relationship with others, always be grown-up.”

Tom Brokaw (1940) Television journalist

Passion

“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

God

“But listen to me when I say this. You are an exceptional, talented, and brilliant young woman. Do not ever let anyone make you feel invisible. Do not let anyone - not even a teacher who constantly sends you for coffee - push you around.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Feeling, Coffee, Teachers

“We met each other when we were young, before we knew enough about disappointment, and once we did we found we reminded each other of it.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Disappointment

“Like so many other nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an 'artist', i. e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of tedious and dronelike.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

People, Dreams, Time

“New tastes are like new ideas, young man -- the older you get, the more difficult they are for you to stomach.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Idea

“Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Love, Family, Girl

“you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young, whatever life you wear

it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Life

“People see in stories what they're looking for, my young friend.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

People

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) <br class="br">Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Life, Women, Men, People

“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Variant: the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

Problem, Heart

“I'm a firm believer that every person, young or old, has at least one good story to tell.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Personality

“Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment, learn inner independence, learn to trust that time will sort the good from the bad– including your own bad.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Learning, Time

“He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

Source: All the Pretty Horses (1992)
Context: He thought he'd be an object of some curiosity but the people he saw only nodded gravely to him and passed on. He carried the bucket back into the store and went down the street to where there was a small cafe and he entered and sat at one of the three small wooden tables. The floor of the cafe was packed mud newly swept and he was the only customer. He stood the rifle against the wall and ordered huevos revueltos and a cup of chocolate and he sat and waited for it to come and then he ate very slowly. The food was rich to his taste and the chocolate was made with canela and he drank it and ordered another and folded a tortilla and ate and watched the horses standing in the square across the street and watched the girls. They'd hung the gazebo with crepe and it looked like a festooned brush-pile. The proprietor showed him great courtesy and brought him fresh tortillas hot from the comal and told him that there was to be a wedding and that it would be a pity if it rained. He inquired where he might be from and showed surprise he'd come so far. He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.

Life, God, Truth, Heart

“I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.”

Barbara Pym book Excellent Women

Source: Excellent Women

Love, Hope

“The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Death, Spring, Drink

“I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Secret, Moms, Perfection

“It was so rare to find someone who was both so young and so wise, both so fresh and so jaded.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

“But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Girl, Heart

“A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Men, Thinking

“It sounds to me, young one," Haddek said, "that you are searching for something that cannot be found."
"The truth?" Sazed said.
"No," Haddek replied. "A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

Truth, Faith, Religion, Search

“When I encounter a sunrise, a painting, a woman, or an idea that makes my heart bound like a young calf, then I know I am standing in front of happiness.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Happiness, Idea, Heart, Painting

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Men, Time, Falseness

“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Amanda, Scene Five
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Past, Future

“Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Bird, Flying

“I'm on such a dangerous road, Milena. You're standing firmly near a tree, young, beautiful, your eyes subduing with their radiance the suffering world.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

World, Beauty, Tree, Suffering

“Nothing made sense to me anymore. I knew I was young, I knew I was small. But I was worried that I might already be ruined.”

Augusten Burroughs book A Wolf at the Table

Source: A Wolf at the Table

Sense

“A jolly young fellow from Yuma
Told an elephant joke to a puma;
now his skeleton lies
beneath hot western skies-
the puma had no sense of huma”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Sense

“Birds are settling down for the night, singing lullabies to their young.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Bird, Singing, Night

“In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Men, Lie, Time

“This is so cool,” I said as Dad walked away. “Have you met the tattoo artist? Is he hot?
“He’s a she,” Mom said.
“Is she hot? Cause I’m still young, you know. My sexual identity isn’t fully formed.”

Kelley Armstrong The Gathering

Source: The Gathering

Moms, Tattoo

“I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

1984: Spring (1984)
1980s

Home

“I tried to picture a young, insecure Edward and couldn't, but it was nice to know that once he'd been a boy. Sometimes it felt like Edward had sprung full grown from the head of some violent deity, like a vicious version of Athena.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Skin Trade

Source: Skin Trade

Boy

“Jacoblike a totally normal young man. He's clearly intelligent. But having his day disrupted probably makes him feel the same way I would if I was suddenly told to bungee off the top of the Sears Tower.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Way, Feeling, Intelligence

“Tatiana realized she was too young to hide well what was in her heart but
old enough to know that her heart was in her eyes.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Heart

“Are you suggesting that the gods have trouble acting together, young lady?" Dionysus asked.

Yes, Lord Dionysus."

Mr. D nodded. "Just checking. You're right, of course. Carry on.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

God

“When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Plague of Doves

“You cannot blame porn. When I was young, I used to masturbate to Gilligan's Island.”

Ron Jeremy (1953) Prolific American pornographic actor

“Will smirked, clearly pleased at the effect he was having. "I've no idea. I lost consciousness about then. I was having a lovely dream about a young woman who had mislaid all her clothes…”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Love, Dreams, Idea, Clothes

“Thanks to television, for the first time the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in Banned Books Week '93: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (1993) by Robert P. Doyle, p. 62
1990s

History, Time

“I begin with the young. We older ones are used up but my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at all these men and boys! What material! With you and I, we can make a new world.”

Adolf Hitler book Hitler's Letters and Notes

Adolf Hitler c. 1933; as quoted in Hitler Speaks http://books.google.com/books?id=PndurCstDZMC&pg=PA251 (1939), by Hermann Rauschning, London: Thornton Butterworth, p. 247. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Hitler's Letters and Notes <br class="br">Context: I am beginning with the young. We older ones are used up. Yes, we are old already. We are rotten to the marrow. We have no unrestrained instincts left. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world.

Men, World, Boy