Quotes About Youth

Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty

destruction of the past, or rather the social mechanisms that link one's contemporary experience to that of earlier generations, is one of the most characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late twentieth century. Most young men and women at the century's end grow up in a permanent present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times in which they live

If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.

Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences — nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.

a) the poor, (b) misfits, (c) outcasts, (d) minorities, (e) adolescent youth, (f) the ambitious (whether facing insurmountable obstacles or unlimited opportunities), (g) those in the grip of some vice or obsession, (h) the impotent (in body or mind), (i) the inordinately selfish, (j) the bored, (k) the sinners.

Chiquita was dancing with a brother who was so old I'd bet he used to baby-sit God.

Her young lover changed positions, grabbed her and pulled her rear up high . . . went inside her at a brand-new angle, stroked and grunted. . . . Like he wanted to crawl inside her.

It was a very happy time in my life, and that was an important lesson too: to learn how little it took to be happy, to understand from a young age that the human heart is a small and delicate vase. You must handle it carefully, but in the right circumstances, it does not take much to fill it up.

Once I worshipped Keats for dying young. Now I think it's braver to die old.

The Greeks—who knew everything—knew that immortality without youth was to be feared rather than desired.

I am unimaginably old—fifty. Only witches live to be fifty! Good women die in childbirth at seventeen as I nearly did. By fifty I should be dead or a crone—with my dark looks and my somewhat crooked spine—which I have always disguised with capes of multicolored silk. My youth is gone, but my vanity is not. How can I still dream of love at fifty? I must be mad!

Swinging London had swung right by without stopping.

Young women dream of romance and passion as men dream of conquest because those dreams are necessary goads to leaving home and growing up.

My real despair came because Aphrodite withdrew her favours. Aphrodite needs nothing from me. She always has new singers to celebrate her. So what if they are my students, acolytes, and imitators? So what if they learned everything they know from me? The goddess of love favours the young. She always has

I don't believe in dying for causes. I don't believe in dying for poetry. Once I worshiped Keats for dying young. Now I think it's braver to die old.

W wieku dwudziestu lat jesteÅ›my tym, co uczyniÅ'o z nas wyksztaÅ'cenie, ale ju? okoÅ'o czterdziestu- tym, co powstaÅ'o w wyniku wÅ'asnych wyborów, je?eli takich dokonaliÅ›my. MÅ'ody czÅ'owiek staje siÄ™ takim dorosÅ'ym, jakiego chciaÅ'o jego dzieciÅ"stwo. ZaÅ› czÅ'owiek dojrzaÅ'y jest dzieckiem mÅ'odego czÅ'owieka.

Nous avions le temps. Lui, parce qu'il était vieux, moi parce que j'étais jeune. [We had time. Him, because he was old, me because I was young.]

On occupe sa jeunesse à se préparer à vivre, sa vieillesse à se souvenir d'avoir vécu. Ce faisant, on rate le présent qui seul existe en tombant dans deux pièges, celui de l'avenir qui n'existe pas, celui du passé qui n'existe plus.

vautré sur une chaise de métal, j'espionnai le jeu des garçonnets, lesquels se lançaient leurs voiliers miniatures d'un bord à l'autre du bassin circulaire, puis, malgré moi, j'observai le vent dans la ramée, l'oscillation des arbustes, j'envoyai deux ou trois cailloux pour dessiner des ronds sur l'eau et je me penchais vers les fleurs lorsque la paix m'inonda… J'avais compris.

All age is a kind of tiredness, I think. When you're young, the lines never show. Every morning you wake unmarked, wiped clear by sleep. One day, though, you see lines that itch, as though some crumb of existence has been creased into your skin. They can never be smoothed away, and after a while you forget that this heavy, irritable feeling wasn't always there.

I was always depressed growing up. There wasn't a reason for it, I just was. I was sad and morose. I cried a lot, I wrote a lot, and I read a lot and that was how I dealt with it.

I should have been out there having a wild time like all the other girls my age, but I wasn't. I was going home every night to what was, initially, a very happy marriage.

You know how sporting events are. No one questions grown-ups hanging around. It's a pedophile picnic." Rauser glanced over at me as we walked back to the car. "That's how you see kids and sports?" "You know me. Ray of sunshine.

One day you're young with all your fine plans for the future. The next you're in the future and it doesn't look at all the way you thought it would.