Quotes About Youth

Where grave philosophers have watched the setting sun die out of the sky, as the glories of their own youth have died away unvalued, till lost for ever. Where ascetic reading-men have mooned along its banks blind to all the loveliness of the water-lily below, or the clouds above, as they took their constitutional and pondered their prize essay.

A little farther on, in the old playing-field, there were the wickets, and the bats, and the jumping poles, and four or five boys, in their shirt sleeves and their straw hats, enjoying their half-holiday, as we had done before them. So life goes on; when one is bowled out, another is ready to step into his shoes, and, no matter how many the ball of death may knock over, the cricket of life is kept up the same, and players are never wanting!

I was fifteen when I left school. And what did I get to show for my ten years in the British education system? A piece of paper which said: John Osbourne attended Birchfield Road Secondary Modern. Signed, Mr Oldham (Headmaster) That was f**king it. Not a single qualification. Nothing. I had two career choices: manual labour or manual labour.

At the court hearing, Howard Weitzman told the judge that if they were gonna ban 'Suicide Solution' and hold me responsible for some poor kid shooting himself, then they'd have to ban Shakespeare, 'cos Romeo and Juliet's about suicide, too.

I hated school. Hated it.

Apart from Tony Iommi – who I'd never seen again since leaving school – I didn't even know anyone who could play a musical instrument. So, instead, I decided to grow my hair long and get some tattoos. At least I'd look the part. The hair was easy. The tattoos stung like a f**king bastard.

I'm not proud of everything I've done, I'm not proud of all the drugs and booze, or biting the heads off a few animals. But I was young. I didn't know what the fuck I was thinking. Still it could be worse. I could be Sting.

If our sex life were determined by our first youthful experiments, most of the world would be doomed to celibacy. In no area of human experience are human beings more convinced that something better can be had only if they persevere.

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.

Golf, like the measles, should be caught young, for, if postponed to riper years, the results may be serious.

Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen a good deal of trouble.

Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.

If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat — in other words, turn you into an adult.

I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a 'learning experience.' Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a 'learning experience.' It makes me feel less stupid.

There's a certain kind of behavior in the Arab world that, to me, resembles the way young men behave when there is no significant influence from women in their lives.

Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt.

The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes.

They take a match and light it, and then puff away. "We will learn to smoke; do you like it Johnny?" That lad dolefully replies: "Not very much; it tastes bitter;" by and by he grows pale, but he persists and he soon offers up a sacrifice on the altar of fashion; but the boys stick to it and persevere until at last they conquer their natural appetites and become the victims of acquired tastes. I speak "by the book," for I have noticed its effects on myself

It's a queer thing, growing up. The years pile up, Hap, but at the same time I'm still ever age I ever was. When we stood before those sea-giants, I felt five years old, awed and scared. When I see a pretty lady, I'm eighteen again! And when my bones remind me, I feel all of my sixty years. All those ages are still inside me, all at once. The years stack up like sediment, and the layers remain.

I am an old man, but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life.

I used to think that eighty was a very old age. Now I am ninety. I do not think this any more. As long as you are able to admire and to love, you are young.

A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child who lived in him.

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.