I Don't Want To Grow Up Quotes & Sayings

I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. — Sophia Loren

I grew up in a family where the internalized understanding was that the kids were going to grow up into a better world. I worry, because I don't think my kids are going to have that. The world is very scary. The world would be scary without the choices the current administration made, but they just exacerbated it. And it ticks me off. I want my kids to have a good life. — Bradley Whitford

Mr. Harrison is an awful kind man. He's a real sociable man. I hope I'll be like him when I grow up. I mean BEHAVE like him ... I don't want to LOOK like him. — L.M. Montgomery

I just want my fans to grow up and enjoy the music first, I don't want to change the world that's not what my music is about. — ASAP Rocky

First, it's okay to be sad. It's okay to feel things. Remember that. Second, be a kid for as long as you can. Play games, Travis. Be silly" - her eyes glossed over - "and you and your brothers take care of each other, and your father. Even when you grow up and move away, it's important to come home. Okay?"
My head bobbed up and down, desperate to please her.
"One of these days you're going to fall in love, son. Don't settle for just anyone. Choose the girl that doesn't come easy, the one you have to fight for, and then never stop fighting. Never" - she took a deep breath - "stop fighting for what you want. And never" - her eyebrows pulled in - "forget that Mommy loves you. Even if you can't see me." A tear fell down her cheek. "I will always, always love you. — Jamie McGuire

I feel good with my husband: I like his warmth and his bigness and his being-there and his making and his jokes and stories and what he reads and how he likes fishing and walks and pigs and foxes and little animals and is honest and not vain or fame-crazy and how he shows his gladness for what I cook him and joy for when I make him something, a poem or a cake, and how he is troubled when I am unhappy and wants to do anything so I can fight out my soul-battles and grow up with courage and a philosophical ease. I love his good smell and his body that fits with mine as if they were made in the same body-shop to do just that. What is only pieces, doled out here and there to this boy and that boy, that made me like pieces of them, is all jammed together in my husband. So I don't want to look around any more: I don't need to look around for anything. — Sylvia Plath

I don't want to be considered a hero ... Imagine [if] young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary. — Miep Gies

I don't want to collect anything for myself right now. I really have to watch myself, especially around plants. Even now, just being here, I still get that collector feeling. You know what I mean. I'll see something and then suddenly I get that feeling. It's like I can't just have something - I have to have it and learn about it and grow it and sell it and master it and have a million of it. " He shook his head and scuffed up some gravel. "You know, I'll see something, just anything, and I can't help but thinking to myself, Well, Jesus Christ, now that's interesting! Jesus, I'll bet you could find a lot of those. — Susan Orlean

If someone says: "I don't want to have a cochlear implant, because I want my child to grow up with a rich sense of deaf culture," he must acknowledge that the deaf culture that exists in the world today has a different scale than the deaf culture that's likely to exist in the world 50 years from now. — Andrew Solomon

I'm not sure that I want to be without some lack of confidence. If you are too sure of yourself, you don't grow. You may feel confident in some things, but other fields come up as a challenge. And if you don't anticipate trouble, you will be in trouble. — Lucille Ball

I don't want to grow old gracefully. I want to put up a bit of a fight. — Bruce Forsyth

Otherwise, there were no long goodbyes or emotional scenes. That isn't part of foster care. You just leave and you just die a little bit. Just a little bit because a little bit more of you understands that this is the way it's going to be. And you grow hard around the edges, just a little bit. Not in some big way, but just a little bit because you have to, because if you don't it only hurts worse the next time and a little bit more of you will die. And you don't want that because you know that if enough little bits of you die enough times, a part of you leaves. Do you know what I mean? You're still there, but a part of you leaves until you stand on the sidelines of life, simply watching, like a ghost that everyone can see and no one is bothered by. You become the saddest thing there is: a child of God who has given up. — John William Tuohy

In my mind, a first date really boils down to selling what you have, what you almost have and what you wish you had. First, what you have: wit, humor, intelligence, beauty, confidence. Second, you want to convey that you have ambition and a desire to grow as a person but not talk yourself up too much - - basically what I almost have. And third, you have to reveal that you're human but not a high-maintenance hot mess. This requires being slightly exposed by showing that you don't have it all together, and there are things that you still want and need, or things you wish you had. Of course, all of this must be accomplished while not being too serious or too silly, and while looking particularly cute. Not to mention being mysterious enough to leave them wanting more. Dang, this dating thing is hard! — Megan Carson

I don't know so much about my boys, but my girls, they all work with me. They know how to work. My daughters know it's not done till it's done, even if it's three or four in the morning. I don't want them to grow up with entitlement. — Marie Osmond

I don't want my daughters to grow up the way that I grew up. I want them to actually see Mommy in a fulfilled relationship that's amazing for her. — Jessica White

I don't want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I'd rather work until 6 or 7. — Ben Carson

We all like to think we'll grow up,' Beatrice said. 'History's the one dream we all try and dream together.'
I don't want to grow up.'
You already have.'
I want to grow down. I want to bury myself in the hard earth. I want to root myself there like a dead tree. I want to entangle myself in the earth's heart so nobody can ever pull me out. — Scott Bradfield

Don't tell girls they can be anything they want when they grow up. Because it would have never occurred to them that they couldn't. It's like saying, 'Hey, when you get in the shower, I'm not gonna read your diary.' 'Wait
are you gonna read my diary?' 'No! I said I'm not gonna read your diary. Go take a shower!' — Sarah Silverman

They say the princess is a stunner," said Peashot. "They also say she's eighteen and twice as tall as you," Vayle replied. "I meant the younger one." "The younger one is a boy." "Oh. Well then I meant the older one. Five years is not so much, and anyway, I'll grow." "Yes, I'm sure she thinks daily of a delinquent midget apprentice growing up to claim her hand ahead of all the nobles and princes of the realm. What could any of them possibly give that you don't have, except titles, land, wealth and all that. You don't have any of those things lying around, do you?" "You're an idiot, Vayle. What does delinquent mean?" "It means you. If anybody asks you to describe yourself, that's the word you want." "Thanks. Idiot." "My pleasure. Allisian is pretty though, but I've heard that the prince chops off the heads of men who stare at his sister." Peashot snorted. — Jonathan Renshaw

I have always believed in the magic of childhood and think that if you get your life right that magic should never end. I feel that if adults cannot enjoy a children's book properly there is something wrong with either the book or the adult reading it. This of course, is just a smart way of saying I don't want to grow up. — Colin Thompson

You know what happens to guys? There's what I call the individual time of their career, and the team time of their career. This is the team time. You don't care about all the other stuff. You just want to live in one place, and watch your kids grow up and go to the same school. You say, 'Hey, maybe I'd better play well and be a good enough guy that they keep me.' — Mike Babcock

If you could start children right from the beginning with this thought, you'd see the effect it has on their lives. In fact, I did this with my own children. Again and again, I told them there was a reason why they were here, and they had to find out what that reason was for themselves. From the age of four years, they heard this. I also taught them to meditate when they were about the same age, and I told them, "I never, ever want you to worry about making a living. If you're unable to make a living when you grow up, I'll provide for you, so don't worry about that. I don't want you to focus on doing well in school. I don't want you to focus on getting the best grades or going to the best colleges. What I really want you to focus on is asking yourself how you can serve humanity, and asking yourself what your unique talents are. Because you have a unique talent that no one else has, and you have a special way of expressing that talent, and no one else has it. — Deepak Chopra

It just wasn't supposed to end like this." She looks at me with red-rimmed eyes and yellow skin. Colors should be a good thing, but now, they're marks, omens of bad tidings. "I was supposed to grow up, go to college, get a job," she continues in that gut-clenching croak. "Meet my dream guy, marry, have k-kids. You were going to live next door and we would grow old in the same nursing home. Chuck oatmeal at each other and watch soap operas all day in our rocking chairs. That was my daydream. My perfect life. I don't want to keep asking myself why until the end, but ... " A lone tear trails down her sunken cheek. This time I don't reach out to wipe the water away; I let it go. Down, down, until it drips off the side of her jaw. This is humanity. This is life and death in one room. — Kelsey Sutton

I feel an ache in my throat, but I manage to smile. Two conflicting desires go through me at the same time, each as sharp as a razorblade: I want to see you grow up and Don't ever change. — Lauren Oliver

I don't think that American drivers going to NASCAR are taking the easy way out because as I said, the racing is amazing; it's just that it's easier to adapt to what you grow up with. American drivers grow up with NASCAR, they know NASCAR, and that's where they want to go. — Jacques Villeneuve

You see, team," Dan said passionately, "our problem is negativity, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. I believe where there is a void, negativity will fill it. And, unfortunately, within every organization you get voids in communication between leaders and their employees and between different teams and team members. It happens everywhere: with sports teams, work teams, family teams. Within these voids, negativity starts to breed and grow and, eventually, like a cancer it will spread if you don't address it. As an executive team it's up to us to do everything we can to prevent these voids from occurring and when they do occur, we must quickly fill them with positive communication and positive energy. People don't just want to be seen and heard. They want to hear and see, and if they don't feel like they are part of the company then they will assume the worst and act accordingly. — Jon Gordon

I still don't know what it really means to grow up. However, if I happen to meet you, one day in the future, by then, I want to become someone you can be proud to know. — Makoto Shinkai

I'm in a position now where I can play certain roles and when I get older, I won't be able to. So, I don't have a strategy of trying to grow up too quick, I just want to kind of look at everything. — Tom Welling

If I ever grow up, I don't want to be around for it. — Sebastian Bach

I sit down next to him, and he pulls me to his side. Then he lies down so that I'm draped across him. My hip is tucked between him and the back of the couch. "I don't want to go home yet," he says quietly. He pulls my head down to his chest, and I press my face against it. His hand settles on the back of my head, and he starts to stroke down the length of my hair. "Then don't go," I say quietly. He doesn't. He just threads his fingers into my hair and drags them down my back, over and over, until my eyelids grow heavy and I fall asleep on his chest. I wake up the next morning tucked into my own bed, the covers pulled up to my chin. I sit up and look around. Beside me on the pillow is a note. I open it up and read. Are you in love with me yet? — Tammy Falkner

I want people to see and hear the things I see and hear. And I want them to remember how it was when they were children. I don't want them to grow up entirely.
Every adult is the creation of a child. My own signature, that identifying scrawl required by parcel postmen and valued by a handful of comic-book fans, that signature was devised by a thirteen-year-old boy who thought I'd want to seem important one day. I am stuck with it. My life is the result of that boy's dreams and limitations, and of the company that boy kept a long time ago, back when things could still happen for the first time. — Chris Fuhrman

I don't want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I'll be in the future. I want to be me and nothing but me. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it's possible to be. I'm growing and I don't know how to grow. I'm living but I haven't started living yet. Sometimes I simply disappear from myself. Sometimes it's like I'm not here in the world at all and I simply don't exist. Sometimes I can hardly think. My head just drifts, and the visions that come seem so vivid. — David Almond

I love my Disney fans. A lot of the kids want to grow up and push away from that image, but I don't feel that way at all. — Chelsea Kane

It's very simple: I want his love. I need Christian Grey to love me. This is why I am so reticent about our relationship
because on some basic, fundamental level, I recognize within me a deep-seated compulsion to be loved and cherished. And because of his fifty shades, I am holding myself back. The BDSM is a distraction from the real issue. The sex is amazing, he's wealthy, he's beautiful, but this is all meaningless without his love, and the real heart-fail is that I don't know if he's capable of love. He doesn't even love himself. I recall his self-loathing, her love being the only form he found acceptable. Punished
whipped, beaten, whatever their relationship entailed
he feels undeserving of love. Why does he feel like that? How can he feel like that? His words haunt me: It's very hard to grow up in a perfect family when you're not perfect. I close my eyes, imagining his pain, and I can't begin to comprehend it. — E.L. James

We want to gently remind people that we don't have forever. In my work, I hear parents complain all the time that their children grow up so fast. But they don't take the time to sit down and talk to each other. The last bastion of getting together is around the table. — Leo Buscaglia

This week my son thinks he's the Supremes.All of them. So we can scratch "straight"off the list. At least I hope we can. As a gay kid he'll be a natural leader. Put him in a macho bullshit environment and he's going to have a hard time. I don't want that to happen. (Let's also not forget Wei's immortal words to him nine minutes after he was born, when she first stared into those big brown eyes: "Oh, honey. Promose me you'll grow up to like boys. Because I don't want any other woman in your life except me.") — Steve Kluger

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I have three pieces of advice I want you to remember: Don't ever grow up. Don't become a bore. Don't let The Man get to you. — Sophia Amoruso

It's easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don't want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind. — Akhil Sharma

Because that's the thing about depression. When I feel it deeply, I don't want to let it go. It becomes a comfort. I want to cloak myself under its heavy weight and breathe it into my lungs. I want to nurture it, grow it, cultivate it. It's mine. I want to check out with it, drift asleep wrapped in its arms and not wake up for a long, long time. — Stephanie Perkins

I want to grow up with my audience. I don't expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon. — Joe Strummer

He stops pacing and turns toward me. You won't wait for me. I won't let you give up what should be the best year of your life. I had to grow up way too fast; I'm not taking that away from you, too. It wouldn't be fair. I don't want you to wait for me, Layken. — Colleen Hoover

I don't need to convince men that feminism is important, that just isn't a goal of mine. I can't even have that conversation of whether or not it's important, because if someone asks me that ... I don't want to have a conversation with them until they grow up. — Kathleen Hanna

I don't ever want to grow up. That's boring. — Quincy Jones

I don't think that left to its own devices, capitalism moves along smoothly and everyone gets treated fairly in the process. Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of that child. — Tavis Smiley

A distant warm look entered Major Danby's eyes. "It must be nice to live like a vegetable," he conceded wistfully.
"It's lousy," answered Yossarian.
"No, it must be very pleasant to be free from all this doubt and pressure," insisted Major Danby. "I think I'd like to live like a vegetable and make no important decisions."
"What kind of vegetable, Danby?"
"A cucumber or a carrot."
"What kind of a cucumber? A good one or a bad one?"
"Oh, a good one, of course."
"They'd cut you off in your prime and slice you up for a salad."
Major Danby's face fell. "A poor one, then."
"They'd let you rot and use you for fertilizer to help the good ones grow."
"I guess I don't want to live like a vegetable, then," said Major Danby with a smile of sad resignation. — Joseph Heller

Even when I'm old and grey I'll probably be cruising around and bunny-hopping and stuff. In the words of the Descendents, "I don't want to grow up." — Matt Skiba

It's my life dream to be able to go and continue going to schools and teaching them about stretching and aerobics, cardio and strength training, because I want them to have a better life than I did. I don't want them to grow up to be me. I want them to be healthy. I want them not to go through eating disorders [like me]. — Richard Simmons

I just like being a kid. I enjoy it, I don't want to grow up. — Pharrell Williams

I like to think of people as roses, as they grow older, they slowly and unwillingly start giving up on life, even though they want it. I like to think of people as roses, because I think that they don't know how lovely they could be sometimes. And that they're meant to die, but they do their best to give pleasure to others' eyes and hearts. — Abraham M. Alghanem

You ask a lot of little kids today what they want to be when they grow up and they say "I want to be famous." You ask them for what reason and they don't know or care. I think Andy Warhol got it wrong: in the future so many people are going to become famous that one day everybody will end up being anonymous for fifteen minutes. — Banksy

The cover letter is all about what you want. Nasty Gal gets so many cover letters that detail a "passion for fashion" and then proceed to talk about how this job will help the applicant pursue her interests, gain more experience, and explore new avenues.
If a cover letter starts out like this, I usually end up reading the first couple of sentences before hitting the delete button. Why? Because I don't care about what a job will do for you and your personal development. I know that sounds harsh, but I don't know you, so the fact that you want to work for my company does not automatically mean that I have an interest in helping you grow your career. I have a business that is growing by the day, so I want to know what you can do for me. It's as simple as that. — Sophia Amoruso

He actually does the opposite. He says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."1 If Jesus wanted to grow a church, didn't he know telling people they need to daily pick up an instrument of torture, death, and shame wasn't the way to do it? Jesus opposed the pharisaical legalism of his time, but he also opposed the watered-down, flimsy, cultural religion. He was essentially saying, "I know my miracles are awesome. I know I have immense power. But don't follow me for the wrong reason. The cost is high. The road to follow me is tough, it's painful, it hurts, and you might even face death, but I promise there is joy on the other side. Do you want in? — Jefferson Bethke

It's hard. Being 15, 16, 17. You get so angry. You want to do something with that anger. I guess try to find some other way to let it out. Don't kill people. Don't kill yourself. Let yourself grow up a little. Then you might start to think differently about things. You might get new opportunities to do something with your life that you never thought possible as a teenager." -- Thomas Harvey from the upcoming novel, "Nikki White: Polar Extremes" (Nikki, #3) — Jack Chaucer

I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?'
I said not particularly. — Harper Lee

We don't have to look like everyone else...and act like everyone else. We've got a choice. We can grow up any way we want...It's about becoming what I want to become, not what some surgical committee thinks I should. — Scott Westerfeld

I don't ever want to grow up. I guess I'm like Peter Pan. Grown-ups have problems. I want to stay happy. — Shaquille O'Neal

The point is that I have been totally blind since my pre-mature birth. I have no visual memories, no light in the darkness. Yet, I see so much beauty in my world. It is constantly surrounding me. I know I am loved beyond measure. I am supported, not coddled. I am encouraged, not thwarted. I am pushed, not babied.

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up or who I want to be as an adult. But, I do know that I will succeed. The people in my life believe I can and so, I know without a doubt that I will — Tracy Lee Fitch

I have decided that maybe I want to write when I grow up. I just don't know what I would write. — Stephen Chbosky

My teacher asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I said happy. She told me I don't understand the assignment, I told her she doesn't understand life. — John Lennon

Well, I think the way you feel as a teenager stays with you, forever. I really believe that. And we try to change and we hope that we change, but we don't really in big ways, in serious ways. I think the personality is formed at that time, for the good and for the bad ... We all want to grow up and move on and appear to be different to people. And we want people to see us in a different way. But, I don't know, I think the personality is very, very strongly cemented, and we just bear whatever shortcomings we have and learn to live with it. — Steven Morrissey

When you are converted, you want to do what you didn't want to do before, and you don't want to do what you wanted to do before. There's a change in the heart; there's a cleaning up, a change in orientation, and holiness becomes attractive, instead of something you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with. As long as young people are asking, 'Can I get away with this?' or 'Can I get away with that?' I wonder if they're regenerate. If they're asking, instead, 'How can I grow in holiness?' then I suspect they've begun to understand. — D. A. Carson

We obviously both have our pasts, but that's not important right now. I don't have to know every bad thing you ever did in your life to know that you're a good guy now. People change, grow up, get smarter, move on. In ten years I could be completely different, but I'll never be the person I was yesterday, or even this morning. I don't want to be. I want to try to be better with each second I'm alive." - SHEA — Michelle Warren

I figure there are enough self-opinionated assholes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is. You ask a lot of kids today what they want to be when they grow up, and they say, 'I want to be famous.' You ask them, 'For what reason?' and they don't know or care. I think Andy Warhol got it wrong - in the future, so many people are going to become famous that one day everybody will end up being anonymous for 15 minutes. — Banksy

At some point we all have to grow up. Sure, high school might be the best years of our lives the way people say, but when that's over what are we gonna have? An old football career if we don't play college ball and a whole lot of broken people on our conscience. I don't want that.
Maybe there's hope for me after all. — Melyssa Winchester

'I don't want to grow up', Tom Waits said it. I live it. I put myself in a position to be a kid as long as I want to. I play loud music and scream for a living. — Jason Newsted

I am thinking that I don't want this to happen. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. And to be honest, as the time slows down and my hands are in the air, I am afforded the chance to think one more thought, and I think about her. I blame her for this ridiculous, fatal chase
for putting us at risk, for making me into the kind of jackass who would stay up all night and drive too fast. I would not be dying were it not for her. I would have stayed home, as I have always stayed home, and I would've been safe, and I would have done the one thing I have always wanted to do, which is to grow up. — John Green

a happy child grows up to be a happy adult. When I was growing up, spoiling a child meant ruining a child. If something was spoiled, it either went down the drain or was tossed into the rubbish. These days, however, parents pat themselves on the back because their children want for nothing. Wanting is good. If you want for nothing, then you have no goals. And if you have no goals, you have no life, no drive, and no ambitions. Chances are, if today's children don't inherit a lot of money from their parents, they'll grow up and live off the welfare system. — Jamie Eubanks

I don't like losing money. I don't go gamble. Because I don't want to lose any money. I didn't grow up with any money and I'm not going to go gamble and lose money. — Rick Scott

I got really offended when my single 'Smile' got banned [during after-school hours] from MTV in the U.K. because it had the word fuck in it. They said, 'We don't want kids to grow up too quickly.' But then you have Paris Hilton and the Pussycat Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against womanizing, asshole men, and that's acceptable. You're thinking your kids are gonna grow up quicker because they heard the word fuck than from thinking they should be shoving their tits in people's faces? — Lily Allen

You've been waiting ... "
"I have." He leaned in toward my lips but didn't touch them. "Waiting and waiting forever. For you. Waiting for you to grow up. Waiting for you to see me as something more than just a friend of Ian's. Waiting for the right time to tell you how I feel about you." He whispered so close, I could feel the brush of breath from his beautiful words. "Just a very long time of waiting, Elaina."
... "I don't want to wait anymore." His eyes melded into me and held on. "Please don't make me wait for you any longer," he pleaded. "I can't do it, Cherry. I just can't. — Raine Miller

Don't test God and make some tests for him. That doesn't make any sense. Besides that he can do anything, above everything you could ask. He wants your heart to be real. He wants a volunteering lover. That's why he gives you a choice. He can tell a tree to grow and it will grow. But it's up to you to decide whether you obey him or not, he gave you a will. Even though he didn't give a tree a will, he gave you a will. And he says: "I want you to grow, will you grow? I want you to love me, will you love me? Like I love you, I love you so much." — Lacey Mosley

When you grow up in middle America you are inculcated from the earliest age with the belief - no, the understanding - that America is the richest and most powerful nation on earth because God likes us best. It has the most perfect form of government, the most exciting sporting events, the tastiest food and amplest portions, the largest cars, the cheapest gasoline, the most abundant natural resources, the most productive farms, the most devastating nuclear arsenal and the friendliest, most decent and most patriotic folks on Earth. Countries just don't come any better. So why anyone would want to live anywhere else is practically incomprehensible. In a foreigner it is puzzling; in a native it is seditious. I used to feel this way myself. — Bill Bryson

My father said, 'Son, when you grow up, I don't want you to be a member of a party that caters to the oppressed and the poor. You have to aspire to be a member of a party that is happy, winning and influential.' — Hector Ruiz

He's not even singing," Tobin whispers to Daphne. They sit on the other side of the half circle of chairs in the music room. It's amusing that he thinks I don't know what he's saying. I can't actually hear their words over the singing, but I have spent the weekend mastering the art of lipreading. What isn't amusing, however, is that Tobin has caught on to the fact that I'm merely moving my own lips along with the rest of the choir. Daphne looks up at me. I stare down at the songbook in my hands. Maybe I should try singing along, but I don't know how to make my voice do what hers does, even if I want to. I feel her gaze leave me and I glance back at her.
"Maybe he's just intimidated," Daphne says. "It's his first day in the program."
My hands grow hot at the idea that she thinks I am afraid. I take a deep breath, tempering myself before I set the songbook on fire. — Bree Despain

Do you defend niggers, Atticus?" I asked him that evening.
"Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common."
"'s what everybody at school says."
"From now on it'll be everybody less one
"
"Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school? — Harper Lee

It's like the old thing: The parents stay together for the kids, but the kids know that you don't want to be together. The kids would rather you be happy - and separate - than together and miserable. I don't want my kid to grow up around two parents who just don't work. — Jaime Pressly

My mother taught me to focus on being myself and not to worry what other people think about you. I know that as long as I'm a good person I'll stay on the right path. From my dad I learned that when someone tells you "No" it's only the beginning of a conversation. They both have always let me know that I can do anything I want to do as long as I don't give up. They are the most important role models in my life because they are exactly who I want to be when I grow up. They are supportive and understanding and I try every day to remember what they've taught me. — Lauren Conrad

I used to live in Los Angeles, but I didn't want my kids to grow up in the thick of the obsession with movie-making. There's a lot of sensationalism and superficiality. I wanted to take my kids out of that and raise 'em up elsewhere, and I wanted to stop being preoccupied with whether my star is on the rise or the descent. I can't imagine having a much greater life, and I don't want to be preoccupied with things that don't matter. But of course, ironically, my two oldest daughters have decided that they're going to be actresses. — Woody Harrelson

I think it happens to everyone as they grow up," Jeremy responded. "You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on. It's perfectly normal. — Nicholas Sparks

I blame the Internet. Its inconsiderate inclusion of everything.Success is transparent and accessible, hanging down where it can tease but not touch us. We talk into these scratchy microphones and take extra photographs but I still feel like there are just SO MANY PEOPLE. Every day, 1,035.6 books are published; sixty-six million people update their status each morning. At night, aimlessly scrolling, I remind myself of elementary school murals. One person can make a difference! But the people asking me what I want to be when I grow up don't want me to make a poster anymore. They want me to fill out forms and hand them rectangular cards that say HELLO THIS IS WHAT I DO. — Marina Keegan

I'm starting to realize that I can't be a child forever, that I don't want to be a child forever. I've had my turn, and now it's time to grow up. — Michael J. Collins

That was the sort of everyday love I had to learn to contend with: if you grow up with it, it's hard to think you'll ever match it. I used to think it was difficult for children of folks who really loved each other, hard to get out from under that skin because sometimes it's just so comfortable you don't want to have to develop your own. — Colum McCann

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. It's funny - people ask me that, and I don't know what to tell them. — Mackenzie Rosman

All these guys picking on smart kids and calling them geeks and dweebs are going to grow up and want to know why they don't do something about the terrible state the world is in. I can tell you why. By the time they grow up, most of the kids who realy could have changed things are wrecked. — Bruce Coville

I don't think my kids have to worry too much about me embarrassing them because that's not how I would want to grow up, with wacky dad showing up at school and performing for everyone. — Steve Carell

I'm being quite reasonable, Sophie. We love each other, and I'll be damned if I let you toss that away. You're right, we might not be youthful lovers, but by God, I don't want any other woman in my bed but you. We're not old yet, but I want to grow old with you. And while I'd be proud and delighted if you bore me an heir, it doesn't matter to me if that never happens. I'm not giving you up. Not for money, not for an heir, not for age, not for anything. — Monica Burns

I asked a queen once why she didn't want me. She wasn't a powerful queen, not a monarch of Spain or of Albania. Just a little kingdom of nowhere, but she married well and she had a crown. The queen of nowhere looked at me with her clear grey eyes and said: "Because I don't want to be in a story." Princesses usually grow up to be queens. The cleverness sticks long after the beauty goes. — Catherynne M Valente

I don't want to grow up, I want to grow down — Heidi Baker

As the dreamscape around me grows clearer, I slip further away from it. The mind is a magical thing, I'm discovering. A dreamscape is made of thought and is wider than the sky, able to grow large enough to fit not just our own world, but every possibility and impossibility beyond it. Once I quit thinking of it as being forced into the laws of physics, it's easy to manipulate the dreamscape into anything I want. I don't know how I know all this, no more than I understand how I know things when I dream. I just do.
I throw up my hand, and a wall rises between the orange grove and me. Behind the wall, I start creating the world I need in Representative Belles's mind. — Beth Revis

You don't want to hear what I have to say. You only want me to say what you want to hear. But trust me when I tell you that you won't ever get all you want. You'll just grow frustrated and bitter, and you'll end up doing things that will kill the best part of you. — William Lashner

I beat my children daily, with a shoe, because I don't want them to grow up fairies. At 9 p.m. I promptly play The Wall in full and walk around the house naked carrying cupcakes. It's important my children see my bits in graphic detail. — Thom Yorke