Never Eighteen Quotes & Sayings

I didn't tie anybody up. And I was never on a scene where anyone was killed. I think the law says you can only keep me seventeen or eighteen years if I was never on a scene where anyone was killed. I was never on the crime scenes. I didn't kill nobody, I didn't tell nobody to get killed. I didn't get no trial, but we don't wanna hear that- don't wanna mix anything up with the truth. — Charles Manson

Post-adolescent Expert Syndrome
The tendency of young people around the age of eighteen, males especially, to become altruistic experts on everything, a state of mind required by nature to ensure warriors who are willing to die with pleasure on the battlefield. Also the reason why religions recruit kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers almost exclusively from the 18-21 range. Kyle, I never would have guessed that when you were up in your bedroom playing World of Warcraft all through your teens, you were, in fact, becoming an expert on the films of Jean-Luc Godard. — Douglas Coupland

I detest all books which run chronologically, which commence at the cradle and end with the grave. Even life doesn't run that way, much as people think it does. Life only commences at the hour of spiritual birth - which may be at eighteen or at forty-seven. And death is never the goal - but life! more life! — Henry Miller

I dance with people I despise; amuse myself with men whose only talent lies in their feet, gain the disapprobation of people I honor and respect; return home at day break with my brain in a state which was never intended for it; and arise in the middle of the next day feeling infinitely more, in spirit and flesh like a Liliputian, than a woman with body and soul. Entry (when she was eighteen) in her Commonplace Book, 1868-1869. — Kate Chopin

This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!"
[ ... ]
"Eighteen! This is now eighteen! Take cover when the siren sounds! This is four! Four!"
[ ... ]
"Five! This is five! Ignore the siren! Even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room! Eight! This is eight!"
[ ... ]
"Six!' the phone screamed. 'Six, this is six, this is goddam fucking SIX! — Stephen King

As a callow eighteen-year-old leaving for college, I'd seen my home town as a mere launching pad for a life in worldier locals, a pale to be from rather than a place to be. But years and miles away from home could never attenuate the city's hold on my identity and the more I explored places and people far from Hampton, the more my status as one of its daughters came to mean to me. — Margot Lee Shetterly

Our lives were absolutely monotonous and uneventful. Nothing nice ever happened, except ice-cream on Sundays, and even that was regular. In all the eighteen years I was there I only had one adventure - when the woodshed burned. We had to get up in the night and dress so as to be ready in case the house should catch. But it didn't catch and we went back to bed.
Everybody likes a few surprises; it's a perfectly natural human craving. But I never had one until Mrs. Lippett called me to the office to tell me that Mr. John Smith was going to send me to college. And then she broke the news so gradually that it just barely shocked me. — Jean Webster

I began keeping diaries after they locked Rosemary up at Butler and I went to live with Aunt Elaine in Cranston until I was eighteen, but even the diaries can't be trusted. For instance, there's a series of entries describing a trip to New Brunswick that I'm pretty sure I never took. It used to scare me, those recollections of things that never took place, but I've gotten used to it. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

Even after years of war, some men retained scruples about licensed
homicide. [ ... ] Lieutenant Peter Downward commanded the sniper
platoon of 13 Para. He had never himself killed a man with a rifle,
but one day he found himself peering at a German helmet just visible
at the corner of an air-raid shelter
an enemy sniper.
I had his head spot in the middle of my telescopic sight, my safety
catch was off, but I simply couldn't press the trigger. I suddenly
realised that I had a young man's life in my hands, and for the cost
of one round, about twopence, I could wipe out eighteen or nineteen
years of human life. My dithering deliberations were brought back to
earth with a bump as Kirkbride suddenly shouted: 'Go on, sir. Shoot
the bastard! He's going to fire again.' I pulled the trigger and saw
the helmet jerk back. I had obviously got him, and felt completely
drained ... What had I done? — Max Hastings

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined desert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe's frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe's massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. — Michael Chabon

You know all that sympathy that you feel for an abused child who suffers without a good mom or dad to love and care for them? Well, they don't stay children forever. No one magically becomes an adult the day they turn eighteen. Some people grow up sooner, many grow up later. Some never really do. But just remember that some people in this world are older versions of those same kids we cry for. — Ashly Lorenzana

The horse and mule live thirty years And never know of wine and beers. The goat and sheep at twenty die Without a taste of scotch or rye. The cow drinks water by the ton And at eighteen is mostly done. The dog at fifteen cashes in Without the aid of rum or gin. The modest, sober, bone-dry hen Lays eggs for noggs and dies at ten. But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men Survive three-score years and ten. And some of us, though mighty few Stay pickled 'til we're ninety-two. — Charles Gavan Duffy

I liked hanging out with my family! Later, when you're grown up, you realize you never get to hang out with your family. You pretty much have only eighteen years to spend with them full time, and that's it. So, yeah, it all added up to a happy, memorable time. Even though I was never a star. — Mindy Kaling

The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itself - that slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as a coke high: purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rah-rah Junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use. It was no big deal; it didn't go all at once, with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, that's the scary part. How you didn't stop being a kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clown's trick balloons. The kid in you just leaked out, like the air of a tire. — Stephen King

Where is Wilkins, anyway?" Cameron asked.
"In the living room, being accosted by eighteen women who think he's a stripper. I thought it was best to duck in here."
"So much for never leaving a man behind."
"If he starts screaming, I'll lay down a cover fire and go pull him out. — Julie James

Well," Paul said. "Hit a stiff hand against the dealer's seven through ace. Hit soft eighteen against the dealer's nine or ten. Stand on soft nineteen or above. Double on eleven and on ten against the dealer's two through nine. Split pairs of aces and eights, never split tens, fives, or fours. Split twos through sevens against the dealer's two through seven. Split pairs of nines against the dealer's — Perri O'Shaughnessy

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene, I hardly paid it any mind. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that eighteen years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. The scenery was the last thing on my mind. — Haruki Murakami

They remained the same and could be an endless source of pleasure and satisfaction. There might be people, or a person, of whom that was also true, but he had never, by the age of eighteen, come across any of them. — Ruth Rendell

Without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph. In these years [the eighteen years since the founding of the Party] the development, consolidation and bolshevization of our Party have proceeded in the midst of revolutionary wars; without armed struggle the Communist Party would assuredly not be what it is today. Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood. — Mao Zedong

The club book was never intended to be light and titillated reading for the members. Its function is solely to acquaint those who are contemplating taking new posts with the foibles of prospective employers. This being so, there is no need for the record contained in the eighteen pages in which you figure. For I may hope, may I not, sir, that you will allow me to remain permanently in your service? — P.G. Wodehouse

When I was fifteen or eighteen, I never even imagined I would be in a band, let alone being able to travel to places like Australia and New Zealand. — Sean Mackin

At eighteen Katharine had decided there was dignity in loneliness. In time the ideas had become synonymous in her mind, believing in the distance created between people, one could never be foolish.
"You can always come back," Siobhan said, "if the dark starts to frighten you."
But Katharine knew that wasn't true. — Deborah Valentine

You have never been married? You are a spinster?" Diana laughed. "Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years old, St. John," said she. "I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No. — Charlotte Bronte

My eldest daughter, Suldana, is in love with another woman. She is eighteen and she spends her days working at our kiosk selling milk and eggs, and at night she sneaks out and goes down to the beach to see her lover. She crawls back into bed at dawn, smelling of sea and salt and perfume. Suldana is beautiful and she wraps this beauty around herself like a shawl of stars. When she smiles her dimples deepen and you can't help but be charmed. When she walks down the street men stare and whistle and ache. But they cannot have her. Every day marriage proposals arrive with offers of high dowries but I wave them away. We never talk about these things like mothers and daughters should; but I respect her privacy and I allow her to live. — Diriye Osman

You're never in love with anyone the way you are when you're eighteen, — Mitch Albom

The ocean there was bitterly cold, with an average visibility of eighteen inches, and a huge elephant seal rookery at the shore. Through the winter thousands of the rotund pinnipeds lay strewn across Pine Cove beaches like great barking turds, and although not dangerous in themselves, they were the dietary mainstay of the great white shark, which had evolved over 120 million years into the perfect excuse for never entering water over one's ankles. — Christopher Moore

Why are we bringing him along, again?" Will inquired, of the world in general as well as his sister.
Cecily put her hands on her hips. "Why are you bringing Tessa?"
"Because Tessa and I are going to be married," Will said, and Tessa smiled; the way that Will's little sister could ruffle his feathers like no one else was still amusing to her.
"Well, Gabriel and I might well be married," Cecily said. "Someday."
Gabriel made a choking noise, and turned an alarming shade of purple.
Will threw up his hands. "You can't be married Cecily! You're only fifteen! When I get married, I'll be eighteen! An adult!"
Cecily did not look impressed. "We may have a long engagement," she said. "But I cannot see why you are counseling me to marry a man my parents have never met."
Will sputtered. "I am not counseling you to marry a man your parents have never met!"
"Then we are in agreement. Gabriel must meet Mam and Dad. — Cassandra Clare

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day-
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of fotball, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
with the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.
I had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show-
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love proved in the letting go. — Cecil Day-Lewis

As a human, I'd never been best at anything ... Obviously I could be counted out of anything athletic. Not artistic or musical, no particular talents to brag of. Nobody ever gave away a trophy for reading books. After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to being average. I realized now that I'd long ago given up any aspirations of shining at anything. — Stephenie Meyer

My job title was youth advocate. My approach was unconditional positive regard. My mission was to help the girl youth succeed in spite of the unspeakably harrowing crap stew they'd been simmering in all of their lives. Succeeding in this context meant getting neither pregnant nor locked up before graduating high school. It meant eventually holding down a job at Taco Bell or Walmart. It was only that! It was such a small thing and yet it was enormous. It was like trying to push an eighteen-wheeler with your pinkie finger. I was not technically qualified to be a youth advocate. I'd never worked with youth or counseled anyone. I had degrees in neither education nor psychology. I'd been a waitress who wrote stories every chance I got for most of the preceding years. But for some reason, I wanted this job and so I talked my way into it. I wasn't meant to let the girls know I was — Cheryl Strayed

Eighteen years ago, Lydia had told her that the problem with Paul Scott was that he didn't see Claire as a normal, imperfect human being. He was blind to her faults. He covered her missteps. He would never challenge her or scare her or infuriate her or stir up any of those fiery emotions that made it worthwhile to put up with a man's bullshit. — Karin Slaughter

Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe. — Lord Chesterfield

You're maybe eighteen. Your mother didn't love you enough so you decided to pierce your lip and brand your body to piss her off. You hang around this band because they make you feel like you belong. And most days you wish you were in a band of your own, but you know that probably will never happen." I met his eyes waiting.
I'm twenty. my mother has an assload of tattoos herself, she thinks its art. I have a lip ring because it turns girls on when I do this." He licked his lip, lingering on the metal for a couple intense seconds. My eyes fluttered with nervousness. — Holly Hood

Like the morning you walked out of that old house, when you were eighteen and I was, well, I had just turned nineteen, hadn't I? I was a nineteen-year-old and I was in love with Louis and I was in love with you, and I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as the sight of you walking out a glass door in the early morning, still sleepy, in your underwear. Isn't it strange? — Michael Cunningham

During the eighteen months that followed Halley's visit, Isaac worked day and night on the book. He didn't mind the sacrifice. A living, growing thing took shape before his eyes. Never mind that he ate irregularly. Never mind if he kept at it eighteen hours a day. The book would be worth all the effort. — John Hudson Tiner

The nature of human beings never changes; it is immutable. The present generation of children and the present generation of young adults from the age of thirteen to eighteen is, therefore, no different from that of their great-great-grandparents. Political fads come and go; theories rise and fall; the scientific — Taylor Caldwell

I lived in Judea eighteen hundred years ago, but I never knew that there was such a one as Christ among my contemporaries. — Henry David Thoreau

It seemed especially cruel, then, three days later, in the hospital when the doctor came into the room to tell Leonard that he suffered from something that would never go away, something that could only be "managed," as if managing, for an eighteen-year-old looking out on life, could be any life at all. — Jeffrey Eugenides

I wanted a sailboat, he said. But you didn't want anything. Don't be bitter, I said. It's never too late. No, he said with a great deal of bitterness. I may get a sailboat. As a matter of fact I have money down on an eighteen-foot two-rigger. I'm doing well this year and can look forward to better. But as for you, it's too late. You'll always want nothing. He had had a habit throughout the twenty-seven years of making a narrow remark which, like a plumber's snake, could work its way through the ear down the throat, halfway to my heart. He would then disappear, leaving me choking with equipment. What I mean is, I sat down on the library steps and he went away. I looked through The House of Mirth, but lost interest. I felt extremely accused. Now, it's true, I'm short of requests and absolute requirements. But I do want something. I want, for instance, to be a different person. — Grace Paley

Stop whining; you're eighteen years old and you keep acting like a puppy.
Throgh my complaint carried a teasing note, the irriated eddge behind it was real. The focus required by the hunt made me tense. It's not my fault. His plaintive reply came back. I've never had a tail before. I can't figure out what exactly it's supposed to do. It's so distracting. — Andrea Cremer

At that moment, Mark looked far younger than his eighteen years. He seemed as vulnerable as I felt. Sometimes, the uniforms of the King's army hid lonely boys, far from home with only the company of rough men who cared little for virtue. Mark was reaching out for worthy friendship, and I would not withdraw my hand. Yes, Mark. We are friends. I know you would never do anything that would dishonor that friendship. — Sarah Holman

Later, when you're grown up, you realize you never really get to hang out with your family. You pretty much have only eighteen years to spend with them full time, and that's it. — Mindy Kaling

What if I just want to die?"
"Then I will be sad and disappointed that you cheated yourself out of your chance at existence. Not all of us have that opportunity, you know, to choose life. — Megan Bostic

His conviction of having no purpose in life other than to act as a distillation of poison was part of the ego of an eighteen-year-old. He had resolved that his beautiful white hands would never be soiled or calloused. He wanted to be like a pennant, dependent on each gusting wind. The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions
gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose. — Yukio Mishima

Smiley himself was one of those solitaires who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonimity and his safety. His fear makes him servile - he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes. (ch. 9) — John Le Carre

I still love it. I love lots of other music, too, and always have, but punk's the soundtrack of my youth. I think you never escape the music you're listening to and seeing when you're seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old. — Elizabeth Hand

Eighteen years ago, my left knee I hurt. I've never had a knee injury in the pros. — Brian Leetch

I realise now that the pain Kevin felt - that night, and for nearly eighteen months beforehand, since his suicide attempt - was no less real, no less urgent, than a heart attach, a stroke, a seizure. Than the sensation of running too hard or running too fast, keeling over, grasping for air. Wishing for something to fill your lungs - to rush in and then revive you - except nothing ever does, and maybe nothing ever can.

It is unpleasant, of course, to sympathise with suicide. It is unpleasant to believe in a reality in which death is the only option. And it is problematic, certainly, to compare suicide to running, to cardiac arrest, to terminal cancer. But this is precisely the problem: There is no fair parallel that can be drawn between those who felt the dark pull of suicide and those who never have. — Amy E. Butcher

At eighteen I thought I knew everything, then at thirty, I realized that I knew nothing--and possibly never would, which depressed me until I noticed that no one else knew anything either. — Shirley Conran

And this is the truth. Because I may be only eighteen, but it already seems pretty obvious that the world is divided into two groups: the doers and the watchers. The people things happen to and the rest of us, who just sort of plod on with things. The Lulus and the Allysons.
It never occurred to me that by pretending to be Lulu, I might slip into that other column, even for just a day. — Gayle Forman

We had always known that ours is a small country and that America is very big. But even as a seven-year-old, I was surprised that so many Americans has never noticed us on the map. Perhaps it's like driving a Yugo and realizing that the eighteen-wheeler can's see you. — Firoozeh Dumas

There is a shipwreck between your ribs and it took eighteen years
for me to understand how to understand your kind of drowning.
There are people who cannot be held quietly. There are screams
that are never externalized. If I looked at the photo albums of your
past twenty years, all I would find are decibel meter graphs of
phone calls and the intensity of your silence as you sat
smoking cigarettes in the garage.
There is a shipwreck between your ribs. You are a box with
fragile written on it, and so many people have not handled you
with care.
And for the first time, I understand that I will never know
how to apologize for being
one of them. — Shinji Moon

What you don't know going in is that when you come out, you will be scarred for life. Whether you were in for a week, a month, or a year - even if you come home without a scratch - you are never, ever going to be the same.
When I went in, I was eighteen. I thought it was all glory and you win lots of medals. You think you're going to be the guy. Then you find out the cost is very great. Especially when you don't see the kids you were with when you went in. Living with it can be hell. It's like the devil presides in you. I knew what I sighed up for, yes, and I would do it again. But the reality of war - words can't begin to describe it. — William Guarnere

In fact, the messages actually seemed to increase drug use. Kids aged twelve and a half to eighteen who saw the ads were actually more likely to smoke marijuana. Why? Because it made drug use more public. Think about observability and social proof. Before seeing the message, some kids might never have thought about taking drugs. Others might have considered it but have been wary about doing the wrong thing. But anti-drug ads often say two things simultaneously. They say that drugs are bad, but they also say that other people are doing them. And as we've discussed throughout this chapter, the more others seem to be doing something, the more likely people are to think that thing is right or normal and what they should be doing as well. — Jonah Berger

I'm eighteen, so he's right
there's no hurry. I don't tell him how much I want that sort of connection
a relationship like he and Mom share. The trust and respect between them is plain to see, but I know that under the surface, their relationship simmers with passion. I don't tell him how much I worry it will never happen for me. I don't tell him how some days, I feel as though everything I do is an attempt to be worthy of being loved like that. — Tammara Webber

Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza's daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad's infirm state of health would permit. — Horace Walpole

Since I spent eighteen years of my life as a child, and nine years of that life as a pretty sexually active gay child, my complaint against the current attitudes is that they work mightily to silence the voices of children first and secondarily ignore what adults have to say who have been through these situations. One size fits all is never the way to handle any situation with a human dimension. Many, many children-and I was one of them-are desperate to establish some sort of sexual relation with an older and even adult figure. — Samuel R. Delany

I think when you've lost an election by 179, there's going to be a period of time after eighteen years in government when you can't do anything right, and people just kick you for the sake of it, will never admit they voted Conservative. — Jeffrey Archer

We are contemplating the nature of desire," said Han Fei-tzu. "Whose desire?" she asked. "And for what?" My desire for your bones to heal and become strong, so that they don't snap at the slightest pressure. So that you could stand again, or even raise an arm without your own muscles tearing away chunks of bone or causing the bone to break under the tension. So that I wouldn't have to watch you wither away until now you weigh only eighteen kilograms. I never knew how perfectly happy we were until I learned that we could not stay together. "My desire," he answered. "For you. — Orson Scott Card

I'm 35 but because I've been acting professionally playing women since I was eighteen years old - I never played a teenager - people constantly think I'm like ten years older than I am, which is a little hard on my ego. — Laura Benanti

Christendom never came from an unbroken grave. It would have been buried in that grave, as Judas thought it was going to be, and as the Jews thought it was going to be, except there had been a resurrection from the dead. Then you can explain Christendom, churches, and literatures, if Christ rose again; but otherwise they cannot be explained at all. Our whole civilization rests on the broken Cross of the Master, and it is incredible that a civilization like this, in a world advancing steadily for eighteen centuries, has been founded on a lie. — Richard Salter Storrs

Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams ... and I buried them inside you. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom. — August Wilson

Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other night at the opera." She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her vague forget-me-not eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name was Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church. — Oscar Wilde

Anyone that has come to America past the age of eighteen will be able to understand when I say that you can never shake your accent. — Martin Yan

Most people would probably call me a ghost. I am, after all, dead. But I don't think of myself that way. It wasn't so long ago that I was alive, you see. I was only eighteen. I had my whole life in front of me. Now I suppose you could say I have all of eternity before me. I'm not sure exactly what that means yet. I'm told everything's going to be fine. But I have to wonder what I would have done with my life, who I might have been. That's what saddens me most about dying--that I'll never know. — Christopher Pike

Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kinds of what if questions that could never be answered. — Nicholas Sparks

Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them. — Robert A. Heinlein

One of them told me the craving disappeared as soon as we turned the electricity on," Mueller said. "Then, we turned it off, and the craving came back immediately." Eradicating the alcoholics' neurological cravings, however, wasn't enough to stop their drinking habits. Four of them relapsed soon after the surgery, usually after a stressful event. They picked up a bottle because that's how they automatically dealt with anxiety. However, once they learned alternate routines for dealing with stress, the drinking stopped for good. One patient, for instance, attended AA meetings. Others went to therapy. And once they incorporated those new routines for coping with stress and anxiety into their lives, the successes were dramatic. The man who had gone to detox sixty times never had another drink. Two other patients had started drinking at twelve, were alcoholics by eighteen, drank every day, and now have been sober for four years. — Charles Duhigg

In these written tears alone have I expiated the hardness and ingratitude of my heart of eighteen years. I can never read over these verses without adoring that youthful image which the transparent and plaintive waves of the Gulf of Naples will ever bring to me, - nor without hating myself. But souls above forgive. Hers has forgiven me. Forgive me, too, reader, for I have wept. — Alphonse De Lamartine

At that, every boy on that side of the hall let out a big cheer for the two of them. This went on for about three or four hours before the cold had got the better of the two of them. Without breaking any rooftop siege records, the bedraggled and wet pair came down into the arms of the awaiting riot screws. And surprisingly, for a change, they never suffered any beatings; they got taken to the digger and put on a rule, pending police investigation. Some nine months later, the two kings of the roof stood trial and received eighteen months apiece on top of their sentence ... oh, and the roofing contractor was ecstatically happy. — Stephen Richards

Gosh, was I wrong. Never listen to a pundit. Is there such a thing as "magnetic back-assward"? We pundits and commentators have had our compass needles pointed in that direction for the past eighteen months. Want a stock tip? I would — P. J. O'Rourke

Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters. — John Green

And when she at last came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at her. They both started to rise but she put a hand out, stopped them. 'I can care for myself, please,' and she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.
In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, and an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering.
She was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't seem to care.
'You're all right?' her mother asked.
Buttercup sipped her cocoa. 'Fine,' she said.
'You're sure?' her father wondered.
'Yes,' Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause. 'But I must never love again.'

She never did. — William Goldman