Quotes about young
page 9

“It's hard to maintain a reputation for being grim and mysterious when you're accompanied by a brightly clad young thing, skipping merrily along at your side, holding your hand, and smiling sweetly on one and all.”

Simon R. Green (1955) British writer

Source: The Unnatural Inquirer

Smile

“But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition

Money

“And how do I know that the hate of death is not like a man who has lost his home when young and does not know where his home is to return to?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Death, Hate, Home

“The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

Life, Beauty

“The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Sex

“[He] saw that a peculiar expression had come into his nephew's face; an expression a little like that of a young hindu fakir who having settled himself on his first bed of spikes is beginning to wish that he had chosen one of the easier religions.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Religion

“Now climb, young grasshopper, so your Kung Fu won't be weak.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“They are as empty without a young as we are empty without them”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: The King

“Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Emma (1815)
Works, Emma

Nature, Personality

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Time

“I suggest to my students that they write under a pseudonym for a week. That allows young men to write as women, and women as men. It allows them a lot of freedom they don't have ordinarily.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Women, Men, Freedom

“You can’t help being young, but it’s past time that you stopped being stupid.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Interlude “Locke Stays for Dinner” section 1 (p. 121)
Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006)

Stupidity, Time, Past, Help

“But I am old now; my life is older. When I made the choice I made, I did not think it was forever. It is another thing to give up so young.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Life, Thinking

“Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Time

“A tall, straight-bodied, and by no means ill-favored young Highlander at close range is breath-taking.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

“There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Death

“They're afraid of change, and we must change. They're afraid of the young, and we are the young. They're afraid of music, and music is our life. They're afraid of books, and knowledge, and ideas. They're most afraid of our magic.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Witch & Wizard

Life, Books, Music, Idea

“I've mastered many things in my life. Navigating the strets of London, dancing the quadrille, the Japanese art of flower arranging, lying at charades, concealing a highly intoxicated state, delighting young women with my charms…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Life, Women, Art, Flowers

“I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady."
Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.”

Scott Westerfeld book Touching Darkness

Source: Touching Darkness

School, Smile, Tea

“Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Way

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

World, Law, Girl, Lovers

“We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us—anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.”

Bill Russell (1934) American professional basketball player and coach

Hope, Learning

“My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Family, Learning, Family

“Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Smile, Fools

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Learning, Wise, Graduation

“Sometimes the gift of an inquisitive nature to the young can be greater than that of the wisdom which comes of age.”

Brian Jacques book Mattimeo

Source: Mattimeo

Wisdom, Age, Nature

“Society just doesn't care about young people anymore, even if we are the future.”

Erin Gruwell book The Freedom Writers Diary

Source: The Freedom Writers Diary

People, Future

“… a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

People, Girl, Box

“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Girl, Princess

“You're too young to decide to live forever.”

Maxine Hong Kingston book The Woman Warrior

Source: The Woman Warrior

“What are you doing with the child?" I inquired cautiously.
"I'm teachin' young James here the fine art of not pissing on his feet," he explained.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Art

“You must reach inside yourselves where I live like a story, not old, not young laughing at my own sorrow, weeping pearls at weddings, wielding a torch to melt sand into something clear and bright.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Wedding

“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Lie, Secret, Age, Funny

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

George S. McGovern (1922–2012) American politician, Congressman, senator, Democratic presidential candidate

Men, War, Dreams

“Life goes on. Get over it. You're still young. It'll get better. Blah, Blah, Blah”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Marly's Ghost

Life

“When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

People, Perseverance

“When the horse was little, Massie had covered the walls with posters of young fillies that she thought Brownie would find sexy.”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Revenge of the Wannabes

Horse

“You are as young as you feel. If you begin to feel the warmth of your soul, there will be a youthfulness in you that no one will be able to take away from you.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Youth, Feeling, Soul

“I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“Some time ago," he said, "--how long it seems! -- I remember saying to a young friend of mine of the name of Spiller, 'Comrade Spiller, never confuse the unusual with the impossible.' It is my guiding rule in life.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Life, Time

“I miss everyone. I can remember being young and feeling a thing and identifying it as homesickness, and then thinking well now that’s odd, isn’t it, because I was home, all the time. What on earth are we to make of that?”

David Foster Wallace book The Broom of the System

Source: The Broom of the System

Feeling, Home, Thinking, Time

“…I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God (1994)

Life, People, Way

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

“Now, young lady, I suppose you're here for a work assignment."
Work?" Tally said.
They both looked down at her puzzled expression, and Shay burst into laughter.”

Scott Westerfeld book Uglies

Source: Uglies

Laughter

“And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Dance

“I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time…”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

Time

“The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Way, Girl

“No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Love, Dreams

“And that, my young friends, is the story of our country, one invader after another. Macedonians. Sassanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Cab Driver, p. 146
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Country

“My hair had grown out long and shaggy—not in that sexy-young-rock-star kind of way but in that time-to-take-Rover-to-the-groomer kind of way.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Way, Star, Time

“It may be well to repeat here the saying that old men talk of what they have done, young men of what they are doing, and fools of what they expect to do. The Negro race has a rather large share of the last mentioned class.”

Carter G. Woodson book The Mis-Education of the Negro

Source: The Mis-Education of the Negro

Men, Fools

“We’ll meet again in Lvov, my love and I…” Tatiana hums, eating her ice cream, in our Leningrad, in jasmine June, near Fontanka, the Neva, the Summer Garden, where we are forever young.”

Paullina Simons book The Summer Garden

Source: The Summer Garden

Love, Summer

“I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be.”

Milan Kundera The Joke

Source: The Joke

Falseness

“When you read you can have every adventure. In the pages of a book you can be anyone you ever dreamed of being… They can never tell you you're too young to slay the dragon -- because it all happens right here, where it's safe.”

Janette Oke (1935) Canadian writer

Source: Love Comes Softly

Books, Dreams, Reading

“I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity.”

Neal Shusterman book Scythe

Source: Scythe

Women, Men, Stupidity, Thinking

“Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Pain, Solitude

“Their grandchildren had reminded Will of the song about demon pox he had taught them- when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought- and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

Animals

“We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Question

“I'm a Shadowhunter. Quip fast, die young.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“You just don't know writers. They'll use anything, anybody. They'll eat their young.”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Source: The Singing Detective

“And we will cause it to be well-made, this Sacrifice. You, young and never loving; I, old and never loved. Such a Song the Sea will never have seen.”

Diane Duane book Deep Wizardry

Source: Deep Wizardry

Love, Sea

“The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!”
Alek tried not to laugh. “Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?”
“Don’t try to be clever, young man.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s elephants all the way down!”

Scott Westerfeld book Behemoth

Source: Behemoth

World, Way

“Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Life, Boy, Time

“All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results.”

David Nicholls book Starter for Ten

Source: Starter for Ten

Life, People, Age, Nature

“It's a date," Leo repeats, and we shake on it. Leo's mother sticks her head in the door. "You guys are too young to be dating!"
"Mom!"Leo cries, turning bright red.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: 11 Birthdays

Guy, Moms

“You're only young once, but you can be immature forever”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

“Be grateful you’re not in the forest in France
Where the average young person just hasn’t a chance
To escape from the perilous pants eating plants
But your pants are safe, you’re a fortunate guy
You ought to be shouting how lucky am I”

Dr. Seuss book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

Source: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

Guy, Chance, Personality

“When we are young… we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

Source: City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and 70s

Nostalgia

“There was a young lady named Mae
Who smoked without stopping all day;
As pack followed pack,
Her lungs first turned black,
And eventually rotted away.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey & Peter F. Neumeyer

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Life, For Men

“Some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

People, Time, Powerful

“We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: Running With Scissors

Box

“When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Life, Family

“He would look so young. They were both so young. Tessa knew it was unusual to marry at seventeen and eighteen, but they were racing a clock.
The clock of Jem's life, before it wound down.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Life

“When humans were young, they were pushed around in strollers. When they were old, they were pushed around in wheelchairs. In between, they were just pushed around.”

Tom Robbins Skinny Legs and All

Source: Skinny Legs and All

“He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

“At least when you're young you're also stupid.”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Source: Hey Nostradamus!

Stupidity

“I'd blurted out the question only to keep him from noticing that I was working my hands free, but the Warden behind me, some young brown-haired surfer dude, yelled a warning. "She's getting loose!"
Narc.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Thin Air

Question

“The handsome young fellow who's trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Fate

“hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
-fear buries a tomorrow under woe
and up comes yesterday most green and young”

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

Source: Complete Poems, 1904-1962

Hate, World, Fear, Universe

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.”

Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

L'art d'enseigner n'est que l'art d'éveiller la curiosité des jeunes âmes pour la satisfaire ensuite.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

Art, Nature, Teachers' Day

“So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Ch 13 The Quaker Settlement
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Women, Beauty, Girl

“The good thing about being old, is you don’t have to worry about dying young.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

“We've been rehearsing a classic from antiquity,, the story of a young prince of Denmark who goes mad, drowns his girlfriend, and in his remorse, forces spoiled breakfast on all whom he meets.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool

Madness

“Can we please focus? We are supposed to be professionals." Holly said.

"Not me!" said Orion cheerily, "I'm just a Teenager with hormones running wild and may I say, young fairy lady, they're running wild in your direction.”

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

Source: The Atlantis Complex

“The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit — a reputation, character.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

The Men Who Are Making America (1918) by Bertie Charles Forbes

For Men

“So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Source: Continuum: Music by John Mayer

Life, Way, Game

“The only thing worse than fighting a giant scorpion was fighting a giant scorpion who was trying to protect her young.”

Suzanne Collins Gregor and the Marks of Secret

Source: Gregor and the Marks of Secret

Fight

“If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.”

Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) American dramatist and screenwriter

“I curled myself into a ball and cried quietly, doing that thing that only young people can do, namely, feeling sorry for myself. Once you're past thirty you lose that ability; instead of feeling sorry for yourself you turn bitter.”

Douglas Coupland book Eleanor Rigby

Source: Eleanor Rigby

People, Feeling, Past

“You know what I think? I think that if a young woman doesn't engage in the act of occasionally wishing on a star or a flower or a birthday cake full of candles, then we're forfeiting one of the sweetest whimsies of our youth.”

Robin Jones Gunn (1955) American writer

Source: On a Whim

Youth, Star, Flowers, Birthday

“Not true,” said Adrian. “All guys mean the same thing when they want to ‘get to know a girl better.’ You’re a wellbred young lady, so I understand why you’d be too innocent to understand. Good thing you’ve got me here to interpret.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Guy, Girl, Understanding

“What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

Age and Death
Afterthoughts (1931)

People, Music

“But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Charles Willson Peale (20 August 1811)
1810s

“The young people will think that begging is okay and if you are finding difficulties you can just go on the streets and beg.”

Asenaca Caucau Fijian politician

Statement about beggars, 7 November 2005)

People, Thinking

“When the ceremony ended Anne and I stayed on the field to greet friends, many of whom had traveled to share the ceremony with us. In one respect it was a difficult day at the end of a difficult month. But in the broader view of life, it was a magical evening at the end of an incredible journey we shared. We walked back over to the quarters we would move out of a few days later, and found friends in the yard and almost every room. At one point I saw Mike Hall, Charlie Flynn, Shawn Lowery, and Casey Welch standing in the fading summer light. I thought of my father, of my first day at West Point, and of our cold Christmas Eve flight over Afghanistan seven months before. The final words of my last speech in uniform, spoken just an hour before were repeated in my mind: "If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted and I still trust. I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have it any other way… To the young leaders of today and tomorrow, it's a great life. Thank you."”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

Closing words, p. 394
My Share Of The Task (2013)

Life, People, Way, Travel

“When brother Brigham and brother Joseph Young went up to see the Prophet, they found him chopping wood; for he was a labouring man, and gained his bread by the sweat of his brow. They made themselves acquainted with him. He received them gladly, invited them to his house, and they rejoiced together in the Gospel of Christ, and their hearts were knitted together in the spirit and bond of union.”

Wilford Woodruff (1807–1898) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Journal of Discourses 7:100 (Jan. 10, 1858)

Heart, Christ, Housing

“You young people yourselves are capable of performing anything. Our inventors can invent in a high level, Our innovators can innovate in a high level, only if they keep self confidence and believe that we can.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Addressing an audience of Iranian industry workers and inventors (October 1983); quoted in "Imam's Sahife" vol. 18 p. 189,190.
Foreign policy

People, Confidence, Self-confidence

Quotes about young page 9

Quotes about young
page 9