Quotes About Youth

I was a quiet, nerdy kid living in the Bronx. I spent most of my teens in my room, taking apart electrical items to figure out how they worked before putting them back together, and listening to the music my four older sisters and parents played.

I wish America would stop judging and criticizing teens and instead, try to understand the battles they have to fight every day.

As I got into my teens, I started reading better books, beginning with the Beats and then the hippie writers, people like Wallace Stegner up in Northern California, and all the political New Journalism stuff, the Boys on the Bus dudes and Ken Kesey.

I was fascinated by 'The Lord of the Rings' from about the age of eight, and that lasted well into my teens.

While in my late teens and in my 20s, I worked seven days a week, 20 hours a day. I worked my tail off.

What I wanted to do was use literature and different kinds of stories and poems as a springboard, tapping into the creativity of our teens - I wanted teenagers to come up with their own creative responses to literature - using books themselves as a starting point.

The best thing about being Children's Laureate has definitely been all the children and teens I've met.

Teens want to read something that isn't a lie; we adults wish we could put our heads under the blankets and hide from the scary story we're writing for our kids.

I always loved acting - though what I did in my teens was probably more eclat than elan. But I wasn't sure about doing it professionally.

Children in their young teens are just moving into the moment when they are most receptive to philosophy and psychology. You can explore these things in stories and, in doing so, give them power and control.

Maybe if I ever come to write about my teens and adulthood - and I can't imagine I will - but if I do, then maybe I will want to say a bit more about the ways in which my parents' relationship with one another impacted on me in later years.

Children and teens need to explore the dark side as a healthy part of growing. If a child is protected from everything dreadful, he will have no coping mechanisms in place when finally confronted with disaster.

When I began modelling in my late teens, I started to earn a lot of money very, very quickly, but I'd never been shown how to manage it properly.

The United States has made remarkable progress in reducing both teen pregnancy and racial and ethnic differences, but the reality is, too many American teens are still having babies.

According to God's word, we haven't done a very good job concerning our little ones, nor our teens.

People don't know what to do when writing a story with teens that takes place now - they think you have to make a bunch of references to Facebook.

I was debauched in my 20s, but I was fit and healthy in my teens.

Teens should always remember they are unique, special, and bring something to the world that no one else can.

Teens are passionate, questioning, curious, have a bit of the idealism I still cling to, and they're making decisions for the first time that can alter the course of their lives - and sometimes, the course of the world.

The way people communicate is changing, and no one knows this better than teens. We are using images to talk to each other, to communicate what we're doing, what we're thinking, and to tell stories.

I wanted to have a book that showed there's no one way to sound black. I wanted to tell teens that the way you speak is okay; you're good the way you are.

I am a great believer in jobs for teens. They teach important life lessons, build character, and inflict just the right amount of humiliation necessary for future success in the working world.

Young people, particularly in their teens and 20s, are not consuming sports the way my generation did. They are doing lots of things; they are multitasking. They are getting downloads; they are getting alerts on their computers or on their cellphones, and they are consuming sports in a more real-time but less full-time basis.

I think you've got to be able to relate to what teens are going through.