Quotes About Youth

One reason Humans remain young so long, compar'd to other Creatures, is that the young are useful in many ways, among them in providing daily, by way of the evil Creatures and Slaughter they love, a Denial of Mortality clamorous enough to allow their Elders release, if only for moments at a time, from Its Claims upon the Attention.

young man. Meet me at my place. Glück." So

It was summer, a weekday, and midafternoon; no time for any campus Oedipa knew of to be jumping, yet this one was. She came downslope from Wheeler Hall, through Sather Gate into a plaza teeming with corduroy, denim, bare legs, blonde hair, hornrims, bicycle spokes in the sun, bookbags, swaying card tables, long paper petitions dangling to earth, posters for undecipherable FSM's, YAF's, VDC's, suds in the fountain, students in nose-to-nose dialogue.

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

our brightest kids have been going downhill even faster than our average kids.

The built-in excuse has become as standard in discussions of black crime as it is unsubstantiated, except by peer consensus among the intelligentsia. The phrase "troubled youth" is a common example of the unsubstantiated but built-in excuse, since those who use that phrase usually feel no need to offer any specific evidence about the specific individuals they are talking about, who may be creating big trouble for others, while enjoying themselves in doing so.

Looking at old photographs makes it hard for me to believe that I was ever that thin physically. And remembering some of the things I did in those days makes it hard to believe that I was ever that thin mentally.

public schools have increasingly become militant dispensers of indoctrination with fashionable avant-grade attitudes

It would be naive to overlook the self-interest behind many of the glowing pleas for "expanded educational opportunity for youth." Since youth must compete against each other for jobs, more "opportunity" for tax-subsidized education of middle-class students means a continued escalation of degree requirements for jobs and corresponding restriction of opportunity for youths from poorer families.

Definitions being what they are, young people who waste their time around the house or on street corners are called "unemployed," while those who waste their time in classrooms are called "students.

The primary objective of Federal efforts in family life and sex education has been to reduce unwanted pregnancy rates among teenagers, while the primary goal of most sex educators appears to be encouragement of healthy attitudes about sex and sexuality.

The idea that students can determine relevance in advance is one of the many counterproductive notions to come out of the 1960s.

Much of what is taught in our schools and colleges today seeks to break down traditional values, and replace them with more fancy and fashionable notions, of which "a duty to die" is just one.

I am poor - obscure - just eighteen years of age - with a rapacious appetite for everything and principles as light as my purse.

When we reached home your cheeks were like roses, and your eyes were shining like stars, and you tried to tell Mummy so much in one breath that I thought you would burst.

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at - nothing - at nothing, simply.

Dark girls, fair girls were patting their hair, tying ribbons again, tucking handkerchiefs down the fronts of their bodices, smoothing marble-white gloves. And because they were all laughing it seemed to Leila that they were all lovely.

More than half of Detroit's children now attend charters—second in the nation only to New Orleans (and possibly Flint, Michigan)—and 80 percent of these are for-profit.

When Ray had asked her why she was so sad, she'd replied, "Because how can I feel so old without having grown up.

But no fifty-year-old can compete with a twenty-year-old.

She didn't care to be reminded how starved she looked, but she could hardly bemoan the fact. It had lent well to her disguise. Though seventeen, she had masqueraded as a stripling lad beneath the very noses of the Yankees. Captain Latimer had not even been suspicious.

When we were young, we were told that poetry is about voice, about finding a voice and speaking with this voice, but the older I get I think it's not about voice, it's about listening and the art of listening, listening with attention. I don't just mean with the ear; bringing the quality of attention to the world. The writers I like best are those who attend.

I wish kids at school would quit calling me a porno dork-face, though. There wasn't any sex involved! I got knocked out, I panicked and called the cops. Okay, somewhere along the line everybody's clothes fell off, but that's not exactly a federal crime. Is it? I hope you don't work for the FBI. (You don't, do you?) - Email Excerpt (Page: 21) From: Douglas Bracken To: Dr. Rita I. Milton Sent: Friday, November 08 - 5:05 PM Subject: Pressing Concerns

Kids? It's like living with homeless people. They're cute but they just chase you around all day long going, "Can I have a dollar? I'm missing a shoe! I need a ride!"