Quotes About Youth

When I was publishing my first books, the previous generation of authors was fading away, so I was welcomed because I was a new author.

My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula.

During 1989, my mother, who was exceedingly good at finding these free programs - you know, we were on welfare, just trying to get through - but she would find these amazing programs. She sent me to the Soviet Union at the age of 12 to go study in the forest of then-Leningrad with 50 other Soviet kids.

Shortly after I turned 13, Child Welfare took me into care. I was sent to a residential centre where girls with behavioural problems were 'evaluated'. My time there comes back to me now only in flashes of smells, images and sounds.

In Britain, the centrally prescribed welfare to work system short-changes the young unemployed. Transport, housing and education are over centralised.

If the childhood obesity epidemic remains unchecked, it will condemn many of our kids to shorter lives, as well as the emotional and financial burdens of poor health.

When you're 14, anything with a sword and a dragon is pretty cool. But when you're 21 and you've read 2,000 fantasy novels, you start to realize that some of those books, well, they weren't really good. OK, let's be honest. A lot of them were crap.

'The Flash' comics are visually amazing and so well done. I wish I had been introduced to them when I was growing up.

Like every child growing up in America, I read 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn.' I liked them well enough, but I didn't love them.

I think I had a lot of fear, even when I was really young, that I was going to be seen as something that I didn't want to be. I didn't really know how to be myself well enough to be comfortable being someone else.

I was a rebel, the worst kid you could ask for. I did the opposite of everything my parents asked me to do, and I was well known for my rebellion.

To all the younglings I come across in 'Game of Thrones' who suddenly find themselves well known, I say the theatre is your best friend - they will remember you.

When I was really young, Dad wasn't that well known. I don't remember when I realised he was a writer, but I do remember him leaving his full-time job at the Central Electrical Generating Board to concentrate on books.

I think it's child abuse to have someone in the public eye too young. Society basically values wealth and fame and power at the cost of well-being. In the case of a child, it's at the cost of someone's natural development. It's already hard enough to develop.

We can't turn a blind eye to the importance of the well-being of our children, and we need to pay close attention to building the future leaders of tomorrow.

Honest, simple work for young people is essential to their well-being.

No matter who we are or where we live, we all share a basic concern for the safety and well-being of our young people. Their welfare is the most telling measure of our nation's success - and their potential is the most promising element of its future. It is up to us - all of us - to safeguard that future.

There is minimal scientific evidence to suggest the Covid-19 virus is transmitted on football pitches in fresh air, so let's not play roulette with our young people's physical and mental well-being any longer.

As class barriers tumbled and Britain became a more meritocratic society, young, well-educated Scots were best placed to exploit the new social mobility.

There are a lot of young, well-educated, artistic people out there that like to be entertained.

The experience of being a young, blonde, naive but well-intentioned young producer was both intimidating and eye-opening.

Increasing student numbers must be a central plank of the Labour manifesto, backed up by action, not just well-meaning words.

If I have any complaints about my youth... one is that many well-meaning adults lied to me. Not spiteful lies with malicious intent but lies designed to prevent emotional and psychological pain - lies told by the people who cared about me most: my parents, teachers, relatives.

As far as viewpoints, I think I'm more well-rounded and definitely more educated, and probably more hopeful than I used to be. I think when you're young and you get into a cause, you get frustrated with it within a few years, or six months.