Quotes About Youth

I've decided it's not about me at all. It's a protective mechanism for them, a way of buffering themselves against my future death, like when teenagers distance themselves from their parents in preparation for leaving home.

Don't mind Russ, he says. He's a good kid underneath all those holes, although it's a wonder he doesn't spring a leak when he drinks

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back.

This war that is coming—are you sure it will harm all in its path? Even the youth? Everything. It will destroy everything. Pax

Here is a secret good thing: Sometimes I like journal writing at school because I can remind myself of things I might forget when I'm a grown-up. Like that I plan to smoke cigars. And I do not plan to get married. Cigars, yes; husband, no. What if I forget these things?

Ethan and I are done, I said finally. I'm sorry. He was my first boyfriend. I know. The only real boyfriend I've had. I'm a senior in high school and he was my only real boyfriend. I know. And I won't find another one at Jones Hall. That is guaranteed. Okay. This is all very sad and tragic, I said. Alan unwrapped a sleeve of Smarties. Yet, oddly, you don't seem that upset. I know.

All summer they'd been pushing me towards my freedom and now I wanted to claim it

You're a teenage boy. I have boobs. What part of the equation is missing?

Americans invented adolescence. It is not a natural phenomenon. Adolescence is a social construct, created by an urban-industrial society that keeps its young at home far past puberty. Teenage angst is a luxury if a successful modern human conceit that isn't condoned by our superior species.

That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.

Nate: "And," he said, "boys at twelve aren't exactly slick with the ladies." Ruby: "'Slick with the ladies'?" I said. "Are you twelve?

I felt tears prick my eyes as I looked down at the model again, looking at that girl and boy on the curb. Forever in that place, together.

One open, one closed. It was no wonder that the first image that came to mind when I thought of either of my sisters was a door. With Kirsten, it was the front one to our house, through which she was always coming in or out, usually in mid-sentence, a gaggle of friends trailing behind her. Whitney's was the one to her bedroom, which she preferred to keep shut between her and the rest of us, always.

As if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.

Hey, think fast!' I just looked at Fave as he chucked the basketball at me with possibly the worst overhand throw I'd ever seen. It landed to my far right, then bounced past me, banging against my dad's truck. 'Do you have a vision problem of something?' I asked him. 'Just keeping you on your toes,' he replied

He doesn't love me. He might still love me as I was at fifteen, when I didn't know any better. When I trusted everyone. I'm not that person any more. He's just a boy. He was the first to really hurt me, but he's just a boy. There were a lot of them.

You don't know that. He made a face, doubting this. You don't. You have your whole life ahead of you. Maybe, he said. But even that's not long to be the person she deserves.

I'm saying that, you know, we never get to go to the beach and just, you know, let loose. Fall in love and be different, with no permanent record. We live in our permanent record.

It seemed amazing to me that one night could hold so much, from a merry-go-round to a Pop-Tart with frosting to the most beautiful singing I'd ever heard.

Attention from a cute boy-you could power the world with it.

girl with blonde hair wearing heavy dark eyeliner

In the end, I went away for the summer, fell in love, and everything changed. It's the oldest story in the world.

I looked up and Rina was standing in the doorway of my room, her arms crossed over her chest. She had on a short, pink dress and strappy high-heeled sandals, and her skin — thanks to her mother's tanning bed — was already a deep brown. Her blond hair was down, curling over her shoulders, a pair of white sunglasses parked on top of her head. She looked so healthy and alive it was like she was almost sparking, right there in front of me.

It's funny how one summer can change everything. It must be something about the heat and the smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle, asphalt sizzling after late-day thunderstorms, the steam rising while everything drips around it. Something about long, lazy days and whirring air conditioners and bright plastic flip-flops from the drugstore thwacking down the street. Something about fall being so close, another year, another Christmas, another beginning.