Man And Boy Quotes & Sayings

When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, and so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope. — Mohsin Hamid

I am not a romantic leading man anymore so I don't need to nurture that public image anymore. I can talk about it now because I'm not afraid anymore ... When I grew up, being gay, being sissy or anything like that, was verboten. I disliked myself intensely and feared this part of myself intensely, and had to hide it and became 'Perfect Richard, All-American Boy' as a place to hide. — Richard Chamberlain

Shit, man, democracy failed before it started.

Who thought it was a good idea to let the masses of fucktards decide anything?

[Guess I've got more faith in people.]

People? The election of 2044 -- Curls Bellberry, a boy band presidency on the platform that the Earth is flat and that he'd nuke New York to save Social Security. There's a good reason he was the last president.

Problem with letting people pick a leader is they gravitate towards confident sociopaths no matter how stupid they are.

It's the perception of qualification that fools people.

At least by having corporate executives rule us we get folks who are good at business.

Life hurts, the world is fucked, and that's not going to change. . . — Rick Remender

And whose rules will choose to you follow? God's? Or man's? You say you want to break the outmoded patterns and crate a new model? Then do it. That is part of your destiny, boy. — Kathleen McGowan

Your wolves have more wit than your maester," the wildling woman said. "They know truths the grey man has forgotten." The way she said it made him shiver, and when he asked what the comet meant, she answered, "Blood and fire, boy, and nothing sweet. — George R R Martin

Walking up to the screened porch, however, I felt as strange and disconnected as I had ever been in my entire life. It was as if I were two people: a man who was a capable detective, a loving husband, and a devoted father who was heading toward a quiet little house in the South, and an unsure and fearful boy of eight trudging toward a home that might be filled with music, love, and joy or, just as easily, screaming, turmoil, and madness. — James Patterson

I'd rather be a boy and play with paper airplanes, then be a man and play with a woman's heart. -Niall Horan — One Direction

You see, no one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge-even in a boy it is so-and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher. — Swami Vivekananda

It don't take a weather man to look around and see the weather, Jeb said he'd deliver Florida folks and boy did he ever, and we hold these truths to be self evident number one George W Bush is not president. Number two America isn't a true democracy. And number three the media is not fooling me. — Ani DiFranco

It was really an exciting time trying to find my way from being a boy to becoming a man-being toe to toe and eye to eye with grown men, even though I was only 11 or 12. — Karch Kiraly

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 keep telling the screws over and over again, 'If you treat a young boy in prison like a dog, keep him in a cell that is like a cage and constantly beat him and bully him, that boy is going to grow up hating yous and the system.' The only thing on his mind will be revenge, maybe it is not revenge on the screws that so frequently bullied and tortured him, but in the boy's eyes he is getting revenge on the uniform, as it all means the same thing in the boy's or man's eyes. — Stephen Richards

Hold it right there. You men from the bank?" "You Wash's boy?" "Yessir and Daddy told me I'm to shoot whoever's from the bank." "Well, we ain't from the bank young feller." "Yessir, I'm also s'posed to shoot folks serving papers." "We ain't got no papers neither." "I nicked the census man." "Now there's a good boy. — Joel Coen

I don't know how to be myself. It's like I'm permanently outside myself. Like, like you could push your hands straight through me if you wanted to. And I can see the type of man I want to be versus the type of man I actually am and I know that I'm doing it but I'm incapable of what needs to be done. I'm like Pinocchio, a wooden boy. Not a real boy. And it kills me. — Richard Ayoade

Sometimes, you'll watch the news and you'll see two-year-old boys in South Africa, wearing 'Spider-Man' t-shirts. It's such a global phenomenon. — James Vanderbilt

That old black coat he always wore to preach in was the one he put over her shoulders one evening when they were walking along the road together and he was throwing rocks at the fence posts the way a boy would do, still shy of her. But on a Sunday morning, with the sermon in front of him he'd spent the week on and knew so well he hardly need to look at it, he was a beautiful old man, and it pleased her more than almost anything that she knew the feel of that coat, the weight of it. — Marilynne Robinson

I know a flower that grows in the valley, none knows it but I. It has purple leaves, and a star in its heart, and its juice is as white as milk. Should'st thou touch with this flower the hard lips of the Queen, she would follow thee all over the world. Out of the bed of the King she would rise, and over the whole world she would follow thee. And it has a price, pretty boy, it has a price. What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack? I can pound a toad in a mortar, and make broth of it, and stir the broth with a dead man's hand. Sprinkle it on thine enemy while he sleeps, and he will turn into a black viper, and his own mother will slay him. With a wheel I can draw the Moon from heaven, and in a crystal I can show thee Death. What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack? Tell me thy desire, and I will give it thee, and thou shalt pay me a price, pretty boy, thou shalt pay me a price. — Oscar Wilde

Astrid Dane. . . Her long colorless hair was woven back into a braid, and her porcelain skin bled straight into the edges of her tunic. Her entire outfit was fitted to her like armor; the collar of her shirt was high and rigid, guarding her throat, and the tunic itself ran from chin to wrist to waist, less out of a sense of modesty, Kell was sure, than protection. Below a gleaming silver belt, she wore fitted pants that tapered into tall boots (rumor had it that a man once spat at her for refusing to wear a dress; she'd cut off his lips). The only bits of color were the pale blue of her eyes and the greens and reds of the talismans that hung from her neck and wrists and were threaded through her hair. . .
"I smell something sweet," she said. She'd been gazing up at the ceiling. Now her eyes wandered
down and landed on Kell. "Hello, flower boy. — V.E Schwab

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere. — J.K. Rowling

I havent even been drinking, but, at all, but, you know, being a man, Ive got to say that weve got this guy in the White House who thinks he is a man, you know, who projects himself as a man because he has a certain masculinity, and he's a good old boy, and he used to drink, and he knows how to shoot a gun and how to drive a pickup truck, etcetera like that. Thats not the definition of a man, God Dammit! — Ed Harris

Each soul has its appointed doom. How is it you dare to raise a mortal boy so high - high enough to flout the gods? Bring godhead where a man may reach out and take it? growls Enlil, and lightning splits a clear blue sky. — Janet Morris

No, you become a man when you first decide to put away the things of childhood, the talk of childhood, and the thoughts of childhood. You decide because you cannot be treated as both a man and a boy. Because you are either one or the other, but you are not both ... — Carew Papritz

She kissed her teenage fantasy, the popular boy she used to dream would see something special in her and love her forever. The man kissed her back. — Ophelia London

Edilio is in hiding," Astrid snapped. "Edilio has to worry about being kicked out of the country. Our Edilio."
"He's got a volunteer lawyer - "
But Astrid wasn't done. "They should be putting up statues to Edilio. They should be naming schools after that boy - no, no, I'm not going to call him a boy. If he's not a man, then I'll never meet one."
Lana nodded approvingly, obviously enjoying and sharing in Astrid's outrage. — Michael Grant

As with the bud, so with the blossom. A boy is the only thing known from which a man can be made. I hope that we as parents are teaching our children that they are the sons and daughters of God, and that they have the capacity to become like him. It was the old Edinburgh weaver who prayed, 'O God, help me to hold a high opinion of myself.' Likewise I would counsel young people to hold a high opinion of themselves, to remember who they really are, and to put their faith in their Heavenly Father. — Paul H. Dunn

Ohhhhhhh," she groaned, jerking up from the reclining seat as the tears exploded. She felt as devastated as if she were still in the body of the grizzled fighting man. Convulsing sobs of remorse tortured her energy body and she rocked it like a baby, holding her midsection, feeling as if her stomach would turn inside out. She struggled to speak, gulping in habit for air that didn't exist, which would have been useless to her energy lungs anyway.
She had to know.
"Who? Who ... was ... he?" she managed in spurts. "The boy - "
"You know the answer already, don't you?" Coriskancsia replied gently. — Lianne Downey

You heard what the little filth said to me," Ury growled. "He'll be trouble. I say trench him now."

The other man spoke, his voice low and even. "I heard him, Ury. His mind is quick, and his Greek is good." He knelt down beside my head. "Your choice, boy. Decide now. — Patrick Bowman

You are a wise man, Major, and I will consider your advice with great care - and humility." He finished his tea and rose from the table to go to his room. "But I must ask you, do you really understand what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?"
"My dear boy," said the Major. "Is there really any other kind? — Helen Simonson

The music of a popular song now came from the radio as Hawksmoor gazed out of the window; and he saw a door closing, a boy dropping a coin in the street, a woman turning her head, a man calling. For a moment he wondered why such things were occurring now: could it be that the world sprang up around him only as he invented it second by second and that, like a dream, it faded into the darkness from which it had come as soon as he moved forward? But then he understood that these things were real: they would never cease to occur and they would always be the same, as familiar and as ever-renewed as the tears which he had just seen on the woman's face. — Peter Ackroyd

In fact, once when I imprinted on a young lady's lips a chaste and fatherly kiss for about five minutes, I stopped and said, sorrowfully, "Wouldn't you rather be kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy?"
She frowned and said, "Of course not. If you'd ever been kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy you'd know better than to ask."
Remember that. In any direct competition, the old man is bound to win and the young man knows it. — Isaac Asimov

He is lying on dirty straw. He has been beaten so many times, his body is one bloodied bruise; he is filthy, he is hideous, he is a sinner and he is utterly unloved. At any moment, at any instant, he will be put on a train in his shackles and taken through Cerberus's mouth to Hades for the rest of his wretched life. And it is at that precise moment that the light shines from the door of his dark cell #7, and in front of him Tatiana stands, tiny, determined, disbelieving, having returned for him. Having abandoned the infant boy who needs her most to go find the broken beast who needs her most. She stands mutely in front of him and doesn't see the blood, doesn't see the filth, sees only the man, and then he knows; he is not cast out. He is loved. — Paullina Simons

Warmth stole into Murdoch's voice at the memory, and Farah's heart clenched at the picture of her Dougan not yet a man, and yet not a boy, regaling a room full of hardened prisoners about the graveyard capers and bog adventures of a ten-year-old girl in the Scottish Highlands. "He described ye so many times, I feel as though any of us would have recognized ye had we seen ye on the streets. He told us of yer kindness, yer innocence, yer gentle ways and boundless curiosity. Ye became something of a patron saint to us all. Our daughter. Our sister. Our... Fairy. Without even knowing it, ye gave us- him- a little bit of sunshine and hope in a world of shadow and pain. — Kerrigan Byrne

Our northern brethren buried their dead, were skilled toolmakers, kept fires going, and took care of the infirm just like early humans. The fossil record shows survival into adulthood of individuals afflicted with dwarfism, paralysis of the limbs, or the inability to chew. Going by exotic names such as Shanidar I, Romito 2, the Windover Boy, and the Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, our ancestors supported individuals who contributed little to society. Survival of the weak, the handicapped, the mentally retarded, and others who posed a burden is seen by paleontologists as a milestone in the evolution of compassion. This communitarian heritage is crucial in relation to this book's theme, since it suggests that morality predates current civilizations and religions by at least a hundred millennia. — Frans De Waal

A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet. — Rudyard Kipling

Wait, you remember that?"
"Of course I remember that. You sounded like a frat boy and looked like a fucking model. What man could ever forget that?"
"I would have given anything to know what you were thinking right then."
"I was thinking, 'Highly fuckable intern, twelve o'clock. Disengage, soldier. I repeat, disengage. — Christina Lauren

In all the photos I see the boy I once knew and the man he became, a flawed but decent man whom I grew to care about in a more complicated way than I had ever cared about the boy. — Elizabeth Stone

Within months, Ray Quinn had died, but he'd kept his word. He'd kept it through the three men he'd made his sons. Those men had given the scrawny, suspicious, and scarred young boy a life.
They had given him a home, and made him a man.
Cameron, the edgy, quick-tempered gypsy; Ethan, the patient, steady waterman; Phillip, the elegant, sharp-minded executive. They had stood for him, fought for him. They had saved him.
His brothers. — Nora Roberts

The Avatar is a child to the children, a boy to the boys, a man among men, a woman among women, so that the Avatar?s message might reach each heart and receive enthusiastic response as Ananda. It is the compassion of the Avatar that prompts His every action. — Sathya Sai Baba

As for literature It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's nothing in it. — Ezra Pound

Fine," Strider said tightly. "You can. But you wont. Because you know that if you take the woman out of this home, I'll go gray from worry. And you like my hair the way it is."
"Stridey-man. Are you hitting on my? Trying to get me to run my fingers through those mangy locks?"
Gideon chuckled. "Sweetie pie."
Striders lips even twitched into a grin. "You know I hate when you get mushy like that."
Boy loved it. No question. — Gena Showalter

You know how to check fer thin ice, boy?" he would ask me. "Wall, what you do is stick one foot way out ahead of you and stomp the ice real hard and listen fer it to make a crackin' sound. Thar now, did you hear how the ice cracked whan Ah stomped it? Thet means it's too thin to hold a man's weight. Now pull me up out of hyar and we'll run back to shore and see if we kin built a fahr b'fore Ah freezes to death! — Patrick F. McManus

Pam (from The Office) is not intimidating, like one of those women who wears makeup and tailored clothes, and has a good job that she enjoys, and confidence, and an adult woman's sexuality. There's nothing scary about Pam, because there's no mystery; she's just like the boys who like her; mousy and shy. The ultimate emo-boy fantasy is to meet a nerdy, cute girl just like him, and nobody else will realize she's pretty. And she'll melt when she sees his record collection because it's just like hers ... and she'll never want to go out to a party for which he'll be forced to comb his hair, or buy grown-up shoes or tie a tie, or demonstrate a hearty handshake, or make eye contact, or relate to people who work in different fields, or to basically act like a man. — Julie Klausner

I think that the path that I took was normal in the American society where young women and men are not trained as to how to make the transition from being a girl to being a woman, from being a boy to being a man. And so I think that most young people in America live by trial and error, and not by parental instruction, community guidance. — Sister Souljah

[ ... ] Some parts were totally inappropriate. The corded length of his arms. The broad shoulders and chest that stretched and molded the fabric. The deep bronze of his skin as if he had been lying in the sun for hours. The animal litheness of his movements. He had grown up, and he was no pretty boy. Nick Ryan was all hot-blooded man - and still looked at her as Maggie's little playmate. — Jennifer Probst

That's what writers and artists and creators do, boy. Listen to the Void and try to hear dead folks' thoughts. Feel their pain. The pain of living folks too. Finding a muse is just an artist or holy man's way of getting a foot in the Void Which Binds' front door. Aenea knew that. You should have too. — Dan Simmons

You save an old man and you save a unit; but save a boy, and you save a multiplication table. — Rodney "Gipsy" Smith

EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. — William Shakespeare

Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man. — James Thurber

She didn't want to think about how wrong this was or how foolish it was to give herself to a known seducer. Because tonight Oliver wasn't that man. Not to her. He was the boy who'd cried over his dead mother, the young man who'd lost himself in drink and women to forget the past, the marquess who'd vowed not to marry for money. He was the man to be her lover. — Sabrina Jeffries

Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there's no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back - that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and your finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory. — Arthur Miller

While in any other great city the vagabond child is a lost man, while nearly everywhere the child left to itself is, in some sort, sacrificed and abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the public vices which devour in him honesty and conscience, the street boy of Paris, we insist on this point, however defaced and injured on the surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a magnificent thing to put on record, and one which shines forth in the splendid probity of our popular revolutions, that a certain incorruptibility results from the idea which exists in the air of Paris, as salt exists in the water of the ocean. — Victor Hugo

I felt like for what I needed, Bad Boy got me ... they got me covered. Especially Puff, man. He's going to be the first billionaire rap entertainer. At the end of the day, they need me. Other artists-labels don't need me, but Bad Boy and Puff needs me. And I need them. It goes both ways. — French Montana

For a moment man is a boy, for a moment a lovesick youth, for a moment bereft of wealth, for a moment in the height of prosperity; then at life's end with limbs worn out by old age and wrinkles adorning his face, like an actor he retires behind the curtain of death. — Bhartrhari

Years ago I sang on a track using that voice and someone asked, 'Who is that terribly depressed man' ... But Patrick loved it. He said, 'You sound like a young boy, like a child, like an old woman, like an old man,' and really, we all have all of those things inside of us. I don't do any vocal gymnastics to make the voice better as I age. If it comes out rougher, then it's true to what's happening. Singing is who I am. I didn't train for it, any more than I trained for anything else I did. I probably should take better care of myself physically, but it goes against the grain. — Lisa Gerrard

Not only had he wanted her in his personal territory, he'd just wanted her with him. Earlier, her quiet, thoughtful care had wiped away the gut-churning anger that had gripped him after his discussion with his mother. His and Charlotte's resulting conversation had made him remember that he wasn't that lost, angry boy anymore but a man who had a beautiful, smart, deliciously sexy woman in his life. It had been selfish, but he'd wanted more of her warmth and sweetness around him. — Nalini Singh

That was always my experience-a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton ... However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I wondered once if Corion had put that sickness in me, if I were the tool and he the architect of that violence and cruelty. I wondered if having taken his head, if having grown from boy to man, I would be a better person. I wondered if I might be the man the Nuban wanted me to be, the man Tutor Lundist hoped for. — Mark Lawrence

Well I guess I should ask what your name is in case I slip and touch you without getting permission, I'd like to know who's punching me." She giggled and said, "Nah, you have permission but if you need a name it's Sindy, S-I-N, not like the girl next door, and what should I call you, besides the man I want to get naked?" He said "Keith, and if you want me to be the boy next door I can try, but I'll probably fail." She said- "Nope the boy next door is too much like the one whose nose I just tried to break; you can be the sexy stranger. — Sarina Asheford

I need to tell you a story.'

What about?

Zachariah, Zachariah, my foundling boy. 'A boy. A boxer, a fighting man. A brother. No. About brothers, sisters. Foundlings, laid-in-the-streets. Fights, fighting. A boy, it all begins with the boy. My love. A wolf. Peter and the Wolf! Oh dear! I am very crazy! Let me - I must tell you this story.'

Why?

'I'm frightened.'

Of?

'Fractals. Patterns.'

Ah, says the fish, looking at Rachel with his wise eyes. Chaos!

'Yes,' thinks Rachel. 'Chaos. Fearful symmetry.'

Go home, says the fish, flipping over, flashing in light, and diving down into the great blue sea. — Emma Richler

And he knew that he would never come again, and that lost magic would not come again. Lost now was all of it-the street, the heat, King's Highway, and Tom the Piper's son, all mixed in with the vast and drowsy murmur of the Fair, and with the sense of absence in the afternoon, and the house that waited, and the child that dreamed. And out of the enchanted wood, that thicket of man's memory, Eugene knew that the dark eye and the quiet face of his friend and brother-poor child, life's stranger, and life's exile, lost like all of us, a cipher in blind mazes, long ago-the lost boy was gone forever, and would not return. — Thomas Wolfe

I happen to be immature, undisciplined, and self-centered, pretty much a little boy in a man's body, although I'd appreciate it if you didn't quote me on that.
-Bobby Tom — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

When I look at him, I don't see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and i don't hear the excuses he gave afterward.
When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is
smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind. — Veronica Roth

Listen, nothing's better than being useful. Tell me how, at the present moment, I can be most of of use. I know it's not for you to decide that, but I'm only asking for your opinion. You tell me, and what you say I swear I'll do! Well, what is the great thought?"
"Well, to turn stones into bread. That's a great thought."
"The greatest? Yes, really, you have suggested quite a new path. Tell me, is it the greatest?"
"It's very great, my dear boy, very great, but it's not the greatest. It's great but secondary, and only great at the present time. Man will be satisfied and forget; he will say: 'I've eaten it and what am I to do now?' The question will remain open for all time. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The plain shiprock walls, and the painted statue of Lord Pas (from which the paint was peeling) will remain with me until the day I die, always somewhat colored by the wonder I felt as a small boy at seeing a black cock struggling in the old man's hands after he had cut its throat, its wings beating frantically, beating as if they might live after all, live somehow somewhere, if only they could spray the whole place with blood before they — Gene Wolfe

Our host drifted away, and Vidia and I continued chatting about this and that. Swift judgments came down. The simplicity in Hemingway was "bogus" and nothing, Vidia said, like his own. Things Fall Apart was a fine book, but Achebe's refusal to write about his decades in America was disappointing. Heart of Darkness was good, but structurally a failure. I asked him about the biography by Patrick French, The World Is What It Is, which he had authorized. He stiffened. That book, which was extraordinarily well written, was also shocking in the extent to which it revealed a nasty, petty, and insecure man. "One gives away so much in trust," Vidia said. "One expects a certain discretion. It's painful, it's painful. But that's quite all right. Others will be written. The record will be corrected." He sounded like a boy being brave after gashing his thumb. The — Teju Cole

I was raised in the Marine Corps and I was taught as a boy that you feed your own men before you feed yourself. It was my belief then, and it remains so today, that my platoon who loves and respect me will slaughter your platoon that hates you. But here is the great lesson I took from the plebe system - it let me know exactly the kind of man I wanted to become. It made me ache to be a contributing citizen in whatever society I found myself in, to live out a life I could be proud of, and always to measure up to what I took to be the highest ideal of a Citadel man - or, now, a Citadel woman. The standards were clear to me and they were high, and I took my marching orders from my college to take my hard-won education and go out to try to make the whole world a better place. — Pat Conroy

Tears had been slipping through the cracks every five or six steps on the trail, and now the latch had burst - hidden cries from the man, buried cries from the son, and honest cries from the little boy all poured from my surrender. — Ed Abell

More and more, for the stupid little kid, that was the idea . . .
That if enough people looked at you, you'd never need anybody's attention ever again.
That if someday you were caught, exposed, and revealed enough, then you'd never be able to hide again. There'd be no difference between your public and your private lives.
That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you'd never want to own or do another thing.
That if you could eat or sleep enough, you'd never need more.
That if enough people loved you, you'd stop needing love.
That you could ever be smart enough.
That you could someday get enough sex.
These all became the little boy's new goals. The illusions he'd have for the rest of his life. These were all the promises he saw in the fat man's smile — Chuck Palahniuk

Just you wait until you get your turn, little man," Amond advised. "I'm not kissin' Josie," Ethan returned, looking a little sick. "No, boy," Amond replied. "When you get a woman of your own." "She's gonna cook like Josie. She's gonna dress like Josie. She's gonna talk like Josie. But we're just holding hands," Ethan informed Amond superiorly and my heart jumped as my belly melted. — Kristen Ashley

The boy in me will always love you," he said, disarming her with a smile. "The man I am doesn't know you yet." And now there was a look in his eyes that she recognized, that resonated deep within her. — Eloisa James

Everyone believes the world's greatest lie ... " says the mysterious old man.
"What is the world's greatest lie?" the little boy asks.
The old man replies, "It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie. — Paulo Coelho

And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beating and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for their are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me. — Ray Bradbury

She leaned over the bed to plant a goodbye kiss on his cheek. Instead he reached up and cupped her head in his left hand, so that he was in charge of her kiss and it landed oh his lips. It was not, as she would have expected, the fumbling kiss of a boy unused to dating but the practiced kiss of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. — Lois Duncan

Ah man. I remember the days of lying to my mother about a boy. Once I had a boy hidden in the closet and of course Mom wouldn't leave, so I finally had to pretend to get sick to my stomach just to get her out of the room long enough for him to climb out the window and down the tree. He fell, broke his leg. Ah, to be young again. — Amy Sherman-Palladino

Because in that moment, watching and listening, he was profoundly moved that God had seen fit to gift him, an ordinary man, an Indiana boy through and through, with these people in his life. — Kristen Ashley

Sicarius padded toward the exit, his soft black boots silent on the tile floor. He paused in the doorway and glanced at the backs of the two older men.
The emperor emitted a nervous chuckle. "You trained him too well, Hollow. The man bothers me."
"He is loyal."
"I know. You did a good job. I ought to give you Sespian to work with. The boy is disappointing."
"He does seem soft," Hollowcrest said.
"Did you hear that scream? I would've been fascinated by severed heads at that age."
"You're fascinated with them now, Sire."
"True enough."
They shared a laugh and headed for the door. Sicarius slipped away before they noticed him. — Lindsay Buroker

He was too many things at once - a boy, a man, and everything in between - and the differing parts of himself seldom came into balance. She found him attractive in that way. Yet the perception saddened her: she herself wasn't too many things, but too few. — Stephen R. Donaldson

You still love him."
"I love the boy he was. I could love the man, too. I don't know, and that's why I have to find out."
"Oh, Aimee," she said sadly, pulling me into a tight hug. "Please be careful."
"Too late," I whispered. — Jane Harvey-Berrick

In fact, I can't think of much I'd like better than for him to step into the room right now, glasses fogged and smelling of damp wool, shaking the rain from his hair like an old dog and saying: 'Dickie, my boy, what you got for a thirsty old man to drink tonight? — Donna Tartt

Son, I hope your opinion of your mother hasn't lessened, knowing what you now know."
Gavin glanced up; incredulity skewed his eyebrows. His expression appeared both stunned and appalled. "Never, Father! I love her! It makes no difference to me where she came from."
The man nodded, a show of relief in his features. His large hand, soft in touch, went to brush a string of hair away from his wife's peaceful profile. "Your mother loves you too, son, more than anything in the world. She worries about you, day and night."
That sentiment stirred something profoundly pleasant inside the boy. He grinned at the internal warmth it created. — Richelle E. Goodrich

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. — Robert Frost

All this, sadly enough, is truer of the more educated, higher-income, professional families. It is here that the competition is the greatest, the expectations most elevated. If the boy would be happier as a telephone linesman or a forest ranger, he is in a hopeless bind. His goals have been set for him by his milieu, and he cannot be his own man; so he simply refuses to play the game. He does not try. — Sydney J. Harris

Very softly, but very swiftly, Last, the man with the grey face and the staring eyes, bolted for his life, down and away from the White House. Once in the road, free from the fields and brakes, he changed his run into a walk, and he never paused or stopped, till he came with a gulp of relief into the ugly streets of the big industrial town. He made hi way to the station at once, and found that he was an hour too soon for the London express. So, there was plenty of time for breakfast; which consisted of brandy. — Arthur Machen

A hero can be anyone, even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat on a young boy's shoulders to let him know the world hadn't ended. — Christopher Nolan

Cabel felt the familiar nostalgic excitement of the endless possibilities encapsulated in a summers' night at Silver Beach. He smiled at himself as a boy and, more ruefully, at the man who now stood on the worn planks of the boardwalk. This night held no possibilities for him, though it was pleasant to remember a time when it did. — Erin Farwell

He has come to be the great man he thought he wanted to be. If this is true, then he is not a man. He is still a little boy and wants the moon. — John Steinbeck

It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor. — Stephen King

Without knowing I was going to, I started to laugh, a crazy laugh like Ian's the night before, and at first he looked worried, but then he started too. Even with the wind whipping past the station, even with Ian hugging his backpack to his chest for warmth, we were laughing, and not a laughter of release or a laughter that was really sadness in disguise. It was the laugh of the absurd. Your grandmother is a seventeen-year-old boy? That creepy Russian man just paid for your ticket? Ferret-Glo? — Rebecca Makkai

I think I made a better boy than I do a man, I admitted ruefully to the wolf.
Why not wait until you've been at it a bit longer and then decide? he suggested. — Robin Hobb

How many of us readers say this quote and mean it. "If I knew what I know now life would be different" ... — Robert Reed

When I looked up at my father as a boy, I thought being a man was having control. Being the master and commander of your own destiny. How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends. I — Pierce Brown

The God of Imagination lived in fairytales. And the best fairytales made you fall in love. It was while flicking through "Sleeping Beauty" that I met my first love, Ivar. He was a six-year-old bello ragazzo with blond hair and eyebrows. He had bomb-blue eyes and his two front teeth were missing.
The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved with political barbed wire. Three things stood in my way.
1. The object of my affection didn't know he was the object of my affection.
2. The object of my affection preferred Action Man to Princess Aurora.
3. The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn't allowed to love a boy. — Diriye Osman

we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, — Mohsin Hamid

Mister, I ain't a boy, no I'm a man, and i believe in a promised land. — Bruce Springsteen

Do you believe a man must be hard?" she asked. She was taking a chance. "Or strong?" By her tone, she left no doubt she saw a difference.
Again Sorilea touched the tray; the smallest of smiles might have quirked her lips for an instant. Or not. "Most men see the two as one and the same, Cadsuane Melaidhrin. Strong endures; hard shatters."
Cadsuane drew breath. A chance she would have scoured anyone else for taking. But she was not anyone else, and sometimes chances had to be taken. "The boy confuses them," she said. "He needs to be strong, and makes himself harder. Too hard, already, and he will not stop until he is stopped. He has forgotten how to laugh except in bitterness; there are no tears left in him. Unless he finds laughter and tears again, the world faces disaster. He must learn that even the Dragon Reborn is flesh. If he goes to Tarmon Gai'don as he is, even his victory may be as dark as his defeat. — Robert Jordan

You should know it yourself- a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn. — Markus Zusak

Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face - the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man - all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us - we have died - what is there to be afraid of?
It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I'm afraid of being rushed. — Christopher Isherwood

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD OL BOY AND THE NICE GAL
The good of boy myth and the nice gal are a kind of social conformity myth. They create a real paradox when put together with the "rugged individual" part of the Success Myth. How can I be a rugged individual, be my own man and conform at the same time? Conforming means "Don't make a wave", "Don't rock the boat". Be a nice gal or a good ol' boy. This means that we have to pretend a lot.
"We are taught to be nice and polite. We are taught that these behaviors (most often lies) are better than telling the truth. Our churches, schools, and politics are rampant with teaching dishonesty (saying things we don't mean and pretending to feel ways we don't feel). We smile when we feel sad; laugh nervously when dealing with grief; laugh at jokes we don't think are funny; tell people things to be polite that we surely don't mean."
- Bradshaw On: The Family — John Bradshaw

What a child does not know and does not want to know of race and colour and class, he learns soon enough as he grows to see each man flipped inexorably into some predestined groove like a penny or a sovereign in a banker's rack. Kibii, the Nandi boy, was my good friend. Arab Ruta (the same boy grown to manhood), who sits before me, is my good friend, but the handclasp will be shorter, the smile will not be so eager on his lips, and though the path is for a while the same, he will walk behind me now, when once, in the simplicity of our nonage, we walked together. — Beryl Markham

In the next hour, as he lay dying, he thought only of that moment of serenity, kneeling next to the church where he had been a boy before he grew into a man and realized the clarity of strength, his knees damp in the wet ground and in his palm the blue and red and purple glass.

As he lay dying, his flesh ripped like fabric, his blood flowing freely like the rain that came so often, he thought only of those beautiful shards of glass and the weight that they carried, and he found it difficult to comprehend that while he held those small holy things, how something so big and so powerful and so violent could have been so silent as it crept up behind him. — Michael Farris Smith