Age Adult Quotes & Sayings

He looks at Mama out of the corner of his eye, again surprised by how little she is. As if all of her life has been a slow process of shrinkage.
But just what is that shrinkage?
Is it the real shrinkage of a person abandoning his adult dimensions and starting on the long journey through old age and death toward distances where there is only a nothingness without dimension? — Milan Kundera

Act your age. Students do not look upon you as a buddy, pal, or peer. They expect you to be a mature adult ... Many young teachers have a tendency to seek popularity, resorting to tactics that can create endless problems. — Jim Brown

Sometimes I forgot our age difference and sometimes it was hard to ignore. Like right now. He radiated a masculinity, a maturity, a confidence, even in his sleep, that other guys my own age just couldn't even compare to. Maybe that was less about his age and more about him. Either way, it was incredibly sexy - he was incredibly sexy. I kind of loved the fact that he could snap me in two and the fact that I knew he never would. — Sarah Darlington

Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the average age of the Vietnam combat soldier was nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men. — Judith Lewis Herman

I love you when you're happy.
I love you when you're sad.
I love you if you're angry,
And I love you if you're bad.
No matter how you feel,
I love you all the time.
Oh my sweet, dear baby,
I love you all the time. — Carla J. Hanna

Too young to care; Too old to change. — Hafsa Shah

There comes a time in a girl's life where she finds her heart broken, what matters is not the boy who broke it but the boy who stitches it back together — Kara Lee Hunter

The bitterest of ironies is that the people who make us feel the most accepted, secure, and whole are the same people who make us feel the most rejected, unstable, and heart broken. — Gume Laurel III

Harry had always been frightened of ending up as one of those child prodigies that never amounted to anything and spent the rest of their lives boasting about how far ahead they'd been at age ten. But then most adult geniuses never amounted to anything either. There were probably a thousand people as intelligent as Einstein for every actual Einstein in history. Because those other geniuses hadn't gotten their hands on the one thing you absolutely needed to achieve greatness. They'd never found an important problem. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I'm going to turn my life around. Make a complete three sixty."
"Don't you mean one eighty?" he corrected. "If you do that, you'll end up right back where you started."
"Maybe. But at least I'll have a chance of coming out of it a different person - a better version of me. — Megan Duke

I think my deepest criticism of the educational system ... is that it's all based upon a distrust of the student. Don't trust him to follow his own leads; guide him; tell him what to do; tell him what he should think; tell him what he should learn. Consequently at the very age when he should be developing adult characteristics of choice and decision making, when he should be trusted on some of those things, trusted to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, he is, instead, regimented and shoved into a curriculum, whether it fits him or not. — Carl Rogers

I'm too old to be ignorant as I am."
--Twelve-year-old Gabriella to the general, who does not want her to know about Emmett Till and the world's brutality. — Elle Thornton

I called all adults by their first names, and my mum was just another adult. I was the firstborn of my generation in the family, but because I was so close to my parents in age, they treated me with a kind of adult respect. They talked to me as an equal. — Nile Rodgers

I used to wonder if a mother could see the shift when her child became an adult. I wondered if it was clinical, like at the onset of puberty; or emotional, like the first time his heart was broken; or temporal, like the moment he said I do. I used to wonder if maybe it was a critical mass of life experiences - graduation, first job, first baby - that tipped the balance; if it was the sort of thing you noticed immediately when you saw it, like a port-wine stain of sudden gravitas, or if it crept up slowly, like age in a mirror. Now I know: adulthood is a line drawn in the sand. At some point, your child will be standing on the other side. I — Jodi Picoult

I brooded over it. If it had been any other dream, I would have ignored it. But it was one of those dreams. One of those purple dreams. One of those dreams that had an unusual tendency to come true. — Erica Sehyun Song

I don't think I could ever live with either a man or a woman for a long time. Male and female are attractive to my mind, but when it comes to the sexual act I am afraid. In every situation I need a lot of stimulation before I am conquered by the forces of passion and lust. But confusion, before and after, is the dominant factor.
I dreamed many times about a mature man with experience who would have the vigour of a boy but an adult's polished methods. Strangely enough, I also dreamed about women of my mother's age who were ideal lovers. These dreams came superimposed on one another. Sometimes the masculine element was dominant, sometimes the feminine one. At other times I wasn't sure. I saw a female body with male organs or a male body with female ones. These pictures, blended together in my mind, occasionally brought pleasure but more often pain. — Adam Thirlwell

I was 13 and a teenager, as well. When you're that age, you want to be an adult, in a way, but you don't want to have the responsibilities of an adult. You still want to have the freedom. — Elle Fanning

At the age of 16 I was already dreaming of having a baby because I felt myself to be an adult, but my mum forbid it. Right now, I feel like a teenager and I want to have fun for one or two more years before starting a family. — Milla Jovovich

There were children playing on the commons. He thought of them as children, though he remembered thinking of himself as an adult at that age. Fifteen, sixteen years old. — James S.A. Corey

Thirty-two is the age we turn into actual adults. — Tom Bodett

Jackie, let me tell you this one true thing and we could go our separate ways, nd I'm gonna be conservative about this right here: Anybody you meet before the age of, say, 25? That's your friend. Anyone after that? That's just an associate. Someone to pass the time. Someone who meets maybe one or two specific needs. But friend? Shit. Friends are at the playground. And adult, sobre life, real life - it's nothing like a playground. And if that sound tough, that's because it is. It's called the real world. And it largely fucking sucks. So if you got one friend when you die, then you got something most people never have. — Stephen Adley Guirgis

You can trace an entire childhood in sexism through the entries sent in to the Everyday Sexism Project. The flashes of realization and first, painful moments of learning a woman's place. Often the memories are so vivid women carry and are shaped by them for the rest of their lives. I've been asked in countless interviews what has shocked me the most since starting the project. I think journalists expect me to tell them that it's the stories of rape, or the most appalling accounts of violence. Those stories have certainly angered and devastated me, of course, but nothing has shocked me more than the thousands and thousands of entries from young girls under the age of eighteen. When I started the project, I thought adult women would share their stories. The torrent of harassment, abuse, violence and assault being faced by children was a horribly unexpected surprise. People — Laura Bates

I never thought I would die at the age of seventeen, so when I received the death message, I was a little freaked out. — Rebekkah Ford

In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults ... Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play. — Philippe Aries

The story of 'Mirror Mirror' is in many ways a story about evolution. It's about the evolution of a child into an adult. It's about the evolution of those dwarves into something a little less rock-like, a little more humanoid. It's about the evolution of history, too, from the darkness of the Middle Ages into the light of the Age of Reason. — Gregory Maguire

In terms of age, I think I've covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel - and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people! — Bruce Coville

In the Empire, the Scholars are not allowed to read and, like so many bullies and power-seekers who hide behind ideologies to justify the terrible things they do, their oppressors wear masks. 'An Ember in the Ashes' suggests that such masks (literal or figurative) don't work. Not forever, anyway. Masks only cover faces. It's actions that show who we are. — Chelsey Philpot

You're at a tough age. You want to be treated like an adult, but you still want kid benefits." "I don't feel like a kid." "You're turning fourteen in a couple of months. Ever heard the expression: youth is wasted on the young? — Andrew Peterson

I feel that in all kids that I've came across, that at the age of 12-13 is a big transition . They begin forming the Young Adult there going to become, here molding . I can't put a "name" on it but it's something. Your trying to find yourself, were getting ready to go to High School and as this world teaches you, you must "belong" to something. (So we Belong to Something) — Richard Cabral

As I watch Nicholas make his way back to his truck, I know one thing: this boy is going to make my life very interesting. I feel as if a fragment of the old me broke away tonight and disappeared, and I'm finally, truly beginning my new life. — Marie Landry

No one can steal your freedom from you. You can only give it away. — Bella James

As a little kid, Peter had figured that once you reached a certain age, somebody just handed you all the knowledge you'd need in order to be an adult. But it turned out that wasn't how it worked. — Tommy Wallach

He just looked at his brother and very slowly shook his head, as if to reprove him. 'Ash' was all he said.
The elder Turner reached out and ruffled his younger brother's hair. Mr. Mark Turner did not glower under that touch like a youth pretending to be an adult; neither did he preen like a child being recognized by his elder. He could not have been more than four-and-twenty, the same age as Margaret's second-eldest brother. Yet he stood and regarded his brother, unflinching under his touch, his eyes steady and ageless. — Courtney Milan

Why am I more cautious as I age instead of the other way around? I wonder if it's all tied in to failure. I tend to forget my gains and remember only the losses. The failures have piled up, wreaking havoc with my confidence until, as an adult, I've become afraid to take chances. — Joan Anderson

We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such. — Ron Paul

His smile is beautiful. It's the kind of smile that can take away all nervousness and tension in a room, no matter how big. I have no choice but to smile back. — S. Elle Cameron

There are still many unsolved problems about bird life, among which are the age that birds attain, the exact time at which some birds acquire their adult dress, and the changes which occur in this with years. Little, too, is known about the laws and routes of bird migration, and much less about the final disposition of the untold thousands which are annually produced. — Paul Bartsch

Growing up with a name that rhymes with turkey - and jerky - was no great fun. But, as an adult, I tell you, being globally unique in the age of Google can be extremely helpful. — Clay Shirky

We are all changed by this war, Soph. Daniel is your brother now that Rachel is ... gone. Truly your brother. And this baby, he or she is innocent of ... his or her creation.'
'It's hard to forget,' she said quietly. 'And I'll never forgive.'
'But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.'
Sophie sighed. 'I suppose,' she said, sounding too adult for a girl of her age.
Vianne placed a hand on top of her daughter's. 'We will remind other, our? On the dark days. We will be strong for each other. — Kristin Hannah

Even the most beautiful flower, the rose," he argued, "has the thorn that makes it imperfect. — Lynetta Halat

You're not done growing. I see you sometimes thinking about shit, and I think you want more than to settle with life. You want to do more, but you're stuck. That's not age. That's a choice. Your life was stale because you settled. — Bijou Hunter

Creativity is the catalyst to the future. — Ann Marie Frohoff

I think more people are going to continue reading YA as well as reading other books because they have learned that they can find books there which they will truly love: a teenage protagonist is close enough to adult so readers of whichever age can sympathise and empathise with them. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Speak kindly to with adult women as you would to your mother. — Lailah Gifty Akita

In an age when all that was old seems new again, Bernard DeVoto's The Hour couldn't have made a more timely reappearance. This book reminds me of one of the joys of being an adult-cocktail hour! — Graydon Carter

The first book by an African American I read was Carl T. Rowan's memoir, Go South to Sorrow. I found it on the bookshelf at the back of my fifth-grade classroom, an adult book. I can remember the quality of the morning on which I read. It was a sunlit morning in January, a Saturday morning, cold, high, empty. I sat in a rectangle of sunlight, near the grate of the floor heater in the yellow bedroom. And as I read, I became aware of warmth and comfort and optimism. I was made aware of my comfort by the knowledge that others were not, are not, comforted. Carl Rowan at my age was not comforted. — Richard Rodriguez

You see failed vocabulary in the adult world so often, and it's often because once you reach a certain age you're kind of embarrassed to go look up a word if you don't know what it means. — Daniel Handler

Sitting around our kitchen table from a very early age on, we talked politics, and we talked policy. Never once can I ever remember my dad saying, 'Go away, this is an adult conversation.' — Cheri Bustos

For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that's because my parents always treated me as an adult. — Ezra Miller

Youth is to wander! Adult is to act! Age is to assimilate the beauty of thoughts. — Debasish Mridha

One of the survival mechanisms of children raised in alcoholic families is an awareness of parental needs and feelings and of changes in parental moods and behavior. The Adult Child often makes a full-time occupation of mind reading with partners, friends, employers, and therapists. As a consequence, they earn a Ph.D. at the age of six in observing the behavior of others and assessing parental needs - but are in elementary school at age thirty, trying to learn to assess, label, or communicate their own needs and feelings. — Jane Middelton-Moz

Being a child sucked. Being a teenager was worse. And being an adult seemed so far away that I had a better chance at swimming the length of the ocean than growing up. — Shannon A. Thompson

There is no age, height, or weight requirement to skate. It is good exercise no matter what your age is. If you want to be competitive, most start young. But, I practice with many adult competitors. — Nancy Kerrigan

Some say it is the elements of hope and wonder in children's books that make them special. But there are many dark young adult novels these days. Adults loved Harry Potter, though it was written for the young. In the end, it is probably up to the reader of any age to decide if this book is for him or her. — Katherine Paterson

I despise this false lucidity that comes with age. The truth is that they are just like everyone else: nothing more than kids without a clue about what has happened to them, acting big and tough when in fact all they want is to burst into tears.
And yet there's nothing to understand. The problem is that children believe what adults say and, once they're adults themselves, they exact their revenge by deceiving their own children. 'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late. The mystery remains intact, but all your available energy has long been wasted on stupid things. All that's left is to anesthetize yourself by trying to hide the fact that you can't find any meaning in your life, and then, the better to convince yourself, you deceive your own children. — Muriel Barbery

My mom says . . . there are bad people who hurt others for fun . . . and there are good people who do it by accident. Like, they make a mistake?

I think you're a good person. — Svetlana Chmakova

Florida is one of a few states that allows the prosecutor to decide to charge a child in adult court for certain crimes and has no minimum age for trying a child as an adult. — Bryan Stevenson

The highly spirited girl stood up to face her challengers & smiled.She had learnt from the age of thirteen, that what men wanted from young naked girls, was sex. And although the crafty Typhon had stipulated that she would be evaluated in five different areas, & the sixth, in accordance to his mood, all six only spelled sex differently.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Adults are obsolete children. — Dr. Seuss

I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain. — Janet Fitch

It's bewildering to me how you can just start chatting with a complete stranger on Facebook, and - next thing you know - it seems as if there's some intense connection with the person - or at least you feel that closeness and hope it's mutual — Zack Love

When you've been hurt enough as a kid (maybe at any age), it's like you have a trick knee. Most of your life, you can function like an adult, but add in the right portions of sleeplessness and stress and grief, and the hurt, defeated self can bloom into place. — Mary Karr

If there is any message in the 'Wimpy Kid' books, it is that reading can be and should be fun. As an adult reader, when I see an obvious moral lesson to be taught, I run in the other direction ... Kids can sniff out an adult agenda from an early age. I'm writing for entertainment, not to impress literary judges. — Jeff Kinney

I've always been quite mature because of the way my parents brought me up. They were very good at talking to me like a person rather than a baby, and I was around so many actors and directors from such a young age because my dad is an actor. I was more comfortable with adults rather than actually being an adult child. — Saoirse Ronan

In an age that seems to be increasingly dehumanized, when people can be transformed into non-persons, and where a great deal of our adult art seems to diminish our lives rather than add to them, children's literature insists on the values of humanity and humaneness. — Lloyd Alexander

Generally it appears the case that, when faced with all life's problems, the baby, he wants to cry about everything, the child wants to question everything, the teenager wants to rebel against everything, the young adult wants to solve everything, the middle-aged adult wants to protect everything, and the elder wants to accept everything. — Criss Jami

One of the most significant effects of age-segregation in our society has been the isolation of children from the world of work. Whereas in the past children not only saw what their parents did for a living but even shared substantially in the task, many children nowadays have only a vague notion of the nature of the parent's job, and have had little or no opportunity to observe the parent, or for that matter any other adult, when he is fully engaged in his work. — Urie Bronfenbrenner

I've come to realize that love is tragic, somewhere down the line it's inevitable. Fight for it. — Ann Marie Frohoff

Not surprisingly, my parents' generation did everything they could to make life easier for their own children. Was that good for us? I wonder. It certainly didn't do us any good from a cultural point of view. I'm struck by how few boomers have embraced adult culture in middle age. — Terry Teachout

I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books. — Lois Lowry

I really like coming-of-age dramas. It's probably the most intense period in anyone's life, those years before you become an adult. Dramatically, there's so much to explore there. And it's nice to be around young talent coming through. — Aidan Gillen

Consider a resident of Berlin, born in 1900 and living to the ripe age of one hundred. She spent her childhood in the Hohenzollern Empire of William II; her adult years in the Weimar Republic, the Nazi Third Reich and Communist East Germany; and she died a citizen of a democratic and reunified Germany. She had managed to be a part of five very different sociopolitical systems, though her DNA remained exactly the same. — Yuval Noah Harari

For me, choice is the most important thing because I'm going to be an adult actor pretty soon. So I've got to be choosing the right roles now so that by the time I get to that age there will be wide options available. — Haley Joel Osment

Whuppins were like kid taxes we paid with our behinds. — Terris McMahan Grimes

The stars twinkled high above and reflected onto the cold window. I blew on the frosty glass and watched my breath fog up. I traced my initials across the cold glass, the condensation trickling down the pane. — Erica Sehyun Song

I came to the age, at 20, that is hard to transfer to an adult. I had a good list of credits, but it's just hard. So I went out for parts when there were some, and I traveled a little, had some fun, and then met my husband. — Suzanne Crough

An age where you feel like you could love anyone, where you put everything on the line for the smallest of things. Eighteen. Adults say that it's an age where we laugh if a leaf tumbles by. But back then, we were more serious than any adult, more intense, and had our strength tested. 1997. That was how our eighteen was beginning. — Ryu Si-won

In personal conversations between director and actor, the male directors that I've worked with are just as emotional. Maybe it's because I had to start having very intimate conversations with adult men at a very young age in order to get the work, but I'm really comfortable with dudes. I mean, we push boundaries in this business in terms of getting to know people. — Kristen Stewart

Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons?
Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible). — Gunther Bloch

My wishing star glowed slightly and winked back at me. I could almost hear its voice, tinkling like wind chimes and church bells, reassuring me that everything would return to normal. — Erica Sehyun Song

Adam stared down at me, his expression thunderous. "It was you. I know it was you."
My head was rocking side to side before I could stop it. "No." I wrenched my hand free of his. "You're wrong."
"I'm not!" Anger blazed hot behind his eyes as they burned into me. "Look at me, Kia! Look me in the eye and tell me you're not her. — Airicka Phoenix

The two of us locked up our own little secrets from the real world. We had experienced countless sleepless nights when we would share our fears, our worries, and our passions; when we would gossip about the school and the other girls. We had played too many pranks and snuck out more than enough times to be expelled if the teachers ever found out. We were professionals at the art of being discreet; however, we had never found sneaking out of a residence necessary, especially when the reason was not to play a prank. — Erica Sehyun Song

Being an adult isn't a matter of age. It's a matter of responsibility. — Jonathan L. Howard

The bus stops and out get the sort of people who travel by bus between cities: students, old people--mainly women--and the middle-aged who cannot afford the train and who have never grown old enough to drive. Out we get, and away we go, the young, the old, and the failed girls. — Joanna Walsh

The "modern man" has "come of age" as a deadly serious adult, conscious of his sufferings and alienations but not of joy, of sex but not of love, of science but not of "mystery. — Alexander Schmemann

I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be ... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages ... the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide ... Far too many people misunderstand what *putting away childish things* means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and *be* fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup. — Madeleine L'Engle

Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it's like to be twelve years old. — Kimberly Willis Holt

Paradoxically, the more Michael kept me at a distance, the more I trusted him - perhaps because he was always willing to help me with tips and introductions even though he wanted absolutely nothing from me (and never reciprocated my nosiness with personal questions of his own with me). — Zack Love

Do you ever wear leather?" the guy asks.
"What?"
"Leather. Do you like leather?"
"It doesn't exactly wipe me out."
"I like to see boys in leather."
I look at him cool. "Okay," I say, "what is it you want and how much are you willing to pay for it?"
"I've got a leather jacket upstairs...Would you put it on?"
"Just put it on?"
"I'll go and get it."
He leaves the horror hole and returns a few minutes later holding a leather flying jacket with a lambswool collar. There are tears in the jacket's sleeves, and the lambswool is yellow with age. John Wayne could've worn it in one of those crappy war films he made. "Put it on," the guy says.
I give him a spiky smile and put on the jacket. "Okay, where's the plane, and what time's take-off?"
"Drop your jeans and turn around. — Eric Bishop-Potter

How can a fifteen-year old girl defend her love when that love is dismissed by everyone? It's impossible to defend yourself against inexperience and age. And maybe they're right. Maybe we don't know love like an adult knows love, but we sure as hell feel it. — Colleen Hoover

Perhaps death is just a big lie. — Bella James

Maybe being an adult wasn't crossing some arbitrary age line into wisdom. Maybe it was like anything else - training wheels and mistakes, trial and error, and now and again that feeling that you might have wings. — Megan Crane

The public library my parents took me to in Fort Worth had the children's section next to the SF/F section, so I was reading adult SF/F at a very young age. — Martha Wells

Whenever someone brings up the traits associated with being a functional human otherwise known as an "adult," I think, is this even possible for me? Probably not, is what I conclude. I mean, I'll eventually pay off my college loans at the age of forty-five by selling what's left of my liver, and I'll probably manage to find sustenance and remember to breathe oxygen constantly. I'll survive. However, for people like me ... There will be years of struggle to keep myself afloat. — Alida Nugent

Consider what a child misses during the 15, 000 hours (from birth to age seventeen) he spends in front of the TV screen. He is not working in the garage with his father, or in the garden with his mother. He is not doing homework, or reading, or collecting stamps. He is not cleaning his room, washing the supper dishes, or cutting the lawn. He is not listening to a discussion about community politics among his parents and their friends. He is not playing baseball or going fishing, or painting pictures. Exactly what does television offer that is so valuable it can replace these activities that transform an impulsive, self-absorbed child into a critically thinking adult? — Paul Copperman

Life is not only consisted of "yes" and "no", but a lot of "yes and's" and "no but's". — Vann Chow

The speaker was good, I liked what he had to say. I had expected a dry recitation on how women should change their gender if they expected to advance in a man's world, since I wasn't about to grow a cock and balls this man gave me hope and inspiration. Women dominated the audience, not surprising since the average African man wouldn't support a speaker preaching gender equality. Africa was a continent with generational precedent for the alpha male, it was part of their culture, learned at an early age. This led to abuse on many levels. Women were expected to do the physical work, produce male babies and satisfy the sexual urgings of men. Urgings that in other societies would be called rape but in Africa were accepted as common practice. I understood this better than most. Pictures of the Kony boy-soldiers and their adult commander were burned into my memory. — Nick Hahn

Dear Diary:
I have a confession to make: I've become a total idiot over French pastries.
They're my new favorite food.
My new-found edible souvenir.
My new favorite sin.
Dunkin Donuts is so yesterday. — Kimberley Montpetit

There's something about the thousands of glittering lights, the veil of nighttime that almost makes this place beautiful, especially in the reflection of the water. It makes everything askew, disoriented. There's more truth in a ripple of water than in a clear day. — Ellie Lieberman

As a kid, snow served the useful purpose of closing schools. As an adult - it shuts down any activity a decent, suntanned person over the age of thirty-five enjoys. I don't do snow forts, snowballs, snow angels, snowmen, snowmobiles, or snowshoes. I don't like to walk in it, drive in it, ski on it, or sled on it. Other than that, snow is just ducky. — Michael Holbrook