Quotes About Youth

As a child I first became aware that my existence had a purpose when I realized men lusted after me. And that's why I will lust forever after men. Before I even began to worry about homework or any of those school things, I began having secret liaisons with men. And it is men who give me the proof I need now to feel I'm alive.

You have to be careful, Terauchi always warned us, or you'll wind up in some database. Then adults will control you.

Most of the kids I know read only manga, but I prefer novels. Novels are closer to real life than manga, it's like they show you the real world with one layer peeled away, a reality you can't see otherwise.

The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because 'what could have been' is much more highly regarded than 'what should have been.' Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

Fine, Connor tells him. Think about stuff until your head explodes. But the only thing I want to think about is surviving to eighteen. I find your shallowness both refreshing and disappointing at the same time. Do you think that means I need therapy?

Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don't teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn't want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn't want kids to know how much power they really had.

That's exactly what the scythedom is: high school with murder.

Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it.

The nation was tearing itself apart over pro-life and pro-choice but completely ignored the problems of the kids who were already here. I mean, no schools, no work, no clue if they'd even have a future. They just went nuts!

The longer we live, the quicker the days seem to pass. How troublesome that is when we live forever. A year seems to pass in a matter of weeks. Decades fly with no milestones to mark them. We become settled in the inconsequential drudgery of our own lives, until suddenly we look at ourselves in the mirror and see a face we barely recognize begging us to turn a corner and be young again.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to be a teenager more than once? When

Hayden shouts, To the new Teen Uprising!

When your parents turn you in to the Juvenile Authority - and they will - I will not shed a single tear for you, Connor Lassiter.

The Fatigues all talk like that. Big-Picture-speak, Risa calls it. Seeing the whole, and none of the parts. It's not just in their speech but in their eyes as well. When they look at Risa, she can tell they don't really see her. They seem to see the mob of Unwinds more as a concept rather than a collection of anxious kids, and so they miss all the subtle social tremors that shake things just as powerfully as the jets shake the roof.

Are you calling me stupid?says Emby. I think I just did. Hayden laughs. Hey, the Mouth Breather's right-unwinding does help people. If it wasn't for unwinding, there would be bald guys again-and wouldn't that be horrible?

This is how he always imagined- a dangerous place full of mystery and violent kids.

On my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize that the expression spoiled rotten meant exactly that. We kids were the apples of our parents' eyes, and I, for one, was rotting from inside out.

Anyway, don't they have girls your age down there? Talon shrugged. Yeah...but none of them ever sprayed me with eye-poison.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because "what could have been" is much more highly regarded than "what should have been." Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

You've hit the nail on the head, Anastasia. That's exactly what the scythedom is: high school with murder.

Every Unwind believes in their heart of hearts that it won't happen to them—that their parents, no matter how strained things get, will be smart enough not to fall for the net ads, TV commercials, and billboards that say things like "Unwinding: the sensible solution.

The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when "should be" gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because "what could have been" is much more highly regarded than "what should have been." Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don't teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn't want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn't want kids to know how much power they really had.

After all, a thirteen-year-old shouldn't use a handheld missile launcher without proper instruction.