Quotes About Adulthood

Time just seems to fly away for a boy. That, I s'pose, is why one day you wake up suddenly and you ain't a boy any longer.

In other words, the regressed individual either defers to authority or acts out a critical, parental role, neither of which represents a genuine adult response.

It doesn't matter who a man's father is. Your parents made a child, but it's up to you to make the man you'll be.

A boy is a man when he proves himself to be one, but a girl is a woman when she desires to be one.

Life does not wait for any of us to grow up.

Their dad had just pulled up stakes, left the country—and us. He said that he no longer wanted a life with so much responsibility, so the responsibility was all mine.

One of the greatest tragedies of growing up is the discovery that your parents- and your teachers, and your sports heroes, and your favorite actors, singers, YouTube sensations- are fallible. Adults don't know all, and what they do know, they often won't tell you- because they've got their own agendas, or because they want to shield you from the hard truths "for your own good." Adults lie, they betray, they screw up in every way possible...

If people really grew up, there would be no crime, no divorce, no Civil War reenactors....it's not like you think it will be, that one day you'll wake up and realize that you've got things figured out. You never figure it out. Ever. - Isabel Spellman attempting to explain growing up to her sister Rae

But that was the hypocrisy of adulthood: You never wanted the children you cared about to do things you'd done when you were heedless of the fragility of life.

He's almost an adult. We have to save ourselves sometimes, Maggie. You should know that.

We don't choose where we come from, Marshall. And we often have little to say about what happens to us. But the adult understands that he and he alone is responsible for his life. You have choices now, choices that will affect your future.

As a boy, he had dreamed of taking a man's place among men; and, as a boy, had deemed himself well fit to do so. Now, amid the grizzled, battle-wise warriors, his strength seemed feeble, his knowledge clouded.

Even in a fantasy realm, growing up is accomplished not without cost.

A man who had, as an adult, fled the cult in which he had been raised, told me that his psychiatrist had recommended The Giver to him.

One foot in front of the other, wasn't that the grownup way of solving problems? Surely he ought to be a grownup at his age.

How hard could husbanding be? Don't drink, don't gamble, don't bring hunting dogs to the table. Don't be terrified of tooth-drawers. Don't be stupid about money. Don't go for a soldier. No hitting girls. He wasn't drawn to violate any of these prohibitions. Assuming older sisters weren't classified as girls. Maybe make that, No hitting girls first.

Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard.

Same jobs over and over, all have to be done again tomorrow or something dies? Despite the weather or the hurting, or, or whatever. Yeah, I guess there are some parallels." While he was weighing this, his mouth kept moving without him. "Or maybe it's just called being a grownup.

Same jobs over and over, all have to be done again tomorrow or something dies?  Despite the weather or the hurting, or, or whatever.  Yeah, I guess there are some parallels."  While he was weighing this, his mouth kept moving without him.  "Or maybe it's just called being a grownup.

Adults are living increasingly as children: completely in their imaginations. Reading Harry Potter while every newspaper in the country goes out of business. They know so little that is real.

After a childhood of hungering to be an adult, my hunger had passed. Unexpected fates had begun to catch my notice. These middle-aged women seemed very tired to me, as if hope had been wrung out of them and replaced with a deathly, walking sort of sleep.

We had put almost all of our possessions in storage, which was a metaphor for being twenty, as were so many things.

difference between a child and an adult is not years, rather it's a willingness to accept responsibility, to be responsible for one's own actions.

Well, I won't, but I hate to see things going all crisscross and getting snarled up, when a pull here and a snip there would straighten it out. I wish wearing flatirons on our heads would keep us from growing up. But buds will be roses, and kittens cats, more's the pity!