Quotes & Sayings About Teenagers

Every teenager deals in his or her own sexuality and has to face it and figure out how it can coincide with the rest of their lives in a healthy manner. And try to navigate it in our modern society, which is wrought with stigma and taboo and repression, and sort of as a result, these inner monsters that some teenagers really struggle with. — Ezra Miller

Unlike perfume, handbags are visible on the body, and--like Air Jordans for teenagers--give the wearer the chance to brandish the logo and publicly declare her status or aspiration. — Dana Thomas

Teenagers are basically toddlers with hormones - old enough to want to do stuff without having any of the common sense. — Jojo Moyes

Teenagers did not have, before rock 'n' roll and rhythm-and-blues - they did not have any type of music they could call their own once they got over 4 or 5 years old until they were well into their 20's and considered adults. — Sam Phillips

I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes. — Joyce Carol Oates

I have a fondness for writing about precocious, troubled teenagers, who are alienating, but kind of endearing. It's from remembering so clearly that time in my own life. I experienced myself as more dramatically troubled than I was, but I just remember how it felt. — Ann Hood

You have to be the prude or the slut, and if you pick one, other people hate you for it, and you can't trust anyone anymore, because they're all after the same thing, and you see that you can never go back to how was before ... — Ned Vizzini

Don't be afraid of failure. That's not an easy lesson for teenagers - especially teenage girls - to learn. Our society sends us a lot of messages that imply we're supposed to be ashamed when we fall short. But I think we should be throwing each other failure parties! — Reshma Saujani

Well, it is so difficult right now when you look out on the road and how fast people go and the more and more cars you see out there, for teenagers, you'd think a kid that literally, a few years before, was sitting back in a car seat in the back seat is now behind the wheel. — Amy Klobuchar

Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars. (Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio-1986) — James Clavell

No worries" is the best thing to happen to sullen teenagers since I was one - even better than vampire sexting, GTL, or Call of Duty. When I was a sullen teenager, we had to make do wtih the vastly inferior "whatever".
"No worries" beats "whatever" six ways to Sunday. I'ts a vaguely mystical way of saying "I hear your mouth make noise, saying something that I plan to ignore." It has a noble Rasta-man vibe, as if you're quoting some sort of timeless yet meaningless proverb on the nature of change - "Soon come," or "As the cloud is slow, the wind is quick." In terms of ignoring provocation, "no worries" is just about perfect. — Rob Sheffield

Are you a terrorist? Or just an idiot? — Wataru Watari

A lot of teenagers have parents that are maybe a little too real with them. — Jennifer Damiano

I'm going to be in another city when my kids are teenagers. I'll be like, 'Give me a call when you're done with all that.' — Justine Bateman

If you surround yourself with the good and righteous, they can only raise you up. If you surround yourself with the others, they will drag you down into the doldrums of mediocrity, and they will keep you there, but only as long as you permit it. — Mark Glamack

Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know. — Sarah Dessen

If life really begins at forty, then all poor people die in their teens. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I think teenagers bring a lot of intellectual sophistication. They're wrestling with big questions. It's just that, a lot of times they do that separately from adults. — John Green

I do not think that having children - I have three teenagers - keeps you young. The reverse. It thrusts you into a full-frontal confrontation with your own all-too-obvious maturity. — Rachel Johnson

How do you know all this? Jeez, Tory, you're a kid. Act like it. (Geary)
(Tory reached out and punched her on the arm.)
Ow! What was that for? (Geary)
Unexpected and irrational emotional outbursts. Isn't that what teenagers are supposed to do? Oh, and sulk. A lot. (Tory) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I feel like most horror films are made for teenagers about teenagers. I've done a couple of those horror films. There's nothing wrong with that but the older I get the more I starve for more adult material. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

All I really want to do today is go to the book store, drink coffee and read. — Ann Marie Frohoff

I had no style when I was 17! I look at teenagers now and say, 'I wish I'd looked like them when I was that age.' I had no style whatsoever, but style also wasn't as prominent as it is today. I was just very laid back, usually wearing jeans and tank tops and flip flops. — Candace Cameron Bure

Perhaps you should put me down?" suggested Nina.
Reality crashed in on Matthias - the guards' knowing looks, Zoya and Genya in the doorway, and the fact that in the course of kissing Nina Zenik with a year's worth of pent-up desire, he had lifted her clear off her feet.
A tide of embarrassment flooded through him. What Fjerdan did such a thing? Gently, he released his hold on her magnificent thighs and let her slide to the ground.
"Shameless ," Nina whispered, and he felt his cheeks go red.
Zoya rolled her eyes. "We're making a deal with a pair of love-struck teenagers. — Leigh Bardugo

Your reader is interested in a guileless, fresh, first-time-we-talked-about-it way. What a great liberation that is. And teenagers, if you respect them, will follow you a lot further than adults will, without fear of being a genre that they may not like or have been told not to like. They just want a story. — Patrick Ness

Not a word. Being a hypocrite is the only way people who were once teenagers can be parents without going out of their damn minds. — DiscontentedWinter

Over the past decade, the anti-smoking movement has railed against the tobacco companies for making smoking cool and has spent untold millions of dollars of public money trying to convince teenagers that smoking isn't cool. But that's not the point. Smoking was never cool. Smokers are cool. Smoking epidemics begin in precisely the same way that the suicide epidemic in Micronesia began or word-of-mouth epidemics begin or the AIDS epidemic began, because of the extraordinary influence of Pam P. and Billy G. and Maggie and their equivalents-the smoking versions of R. and Tom Gau and Gaetan Dugas. In this epidemic, as in all others, a very small group-a select few-are responsible for driving the epidemic forward. — Malcolm Gladwell

While Owen and Miles talk sports, I people watch. And this is what I see: teenagers trying to act like adults. Or how they think adults act. But mostly they look ridiculous, and I wonder what they don't want to do something that's more fun than drinking, smoking, flirting, and making out. Why are those activities considered to be fun? — Melody Carlson

I hated high school. I don't trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there's something wrong with you. — Stephen King

Time seemed to stand still as they remained embraced, him holding his body weight on his elbows as he looked down at her and grinned.
"Now that's a vacation." She laughed and then his grin fell and he shook his head.
"Like a couple of horny teenagers with no thought of tomorrow and no thought of protection. We should both be shot."
"Can you wait until the glow leaves me before you shoot me?" she asked.
He smiled down at her. "You are glowing. You look gorgeous." "It's the look of a sated woman." "I like it. — Carla Cassidy

'Skins' is about a group of teenagers in Bristol, and it's all about what they get up to and all the different things they do. I think it's a good show because it's come from a very real place, and there's a lot of young people involved in the writing. — Hannah Murray

Maybe, generations ago, young people rebelled out of some clear motive, but now, we know we're rebelling. Between teen movies and sex-ed textbooks we're so ready for our rebellious phase we can't help but feel it's safe, contained. It will turn out all right, despite the risk, snug in the shell of rebellion narrative. Rebellion narrative, does that make sense? It was appropriate to do, so we did it. — Daniel Handler

The Doctor put his finger to his lips and Martha nodded and followed him as quietly as she could. Wet leaves squelched under her feet. There was movement up ahead: two teenagers, a pale boy and a nervous girl, walked into a clearing. The sun broke through the clouds and the boy started to sparkle.
Martha felt the Doctor's eyes on her and she blushed. 'Do not judge me.'
'Judging is for later,' he said, and they continued on, giving the young lovers a wide berth. — Derek Landy

So that's what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don't know that. [Note: its the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.] What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I'm evidence of that. I've been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly. — Sharron Angle

To the other. It is the realism needed to manage the inevitable. A model of living that has broadly worked well in the West is spreading, adapting to local conditions as it goes. We should all look forward to the time when Chinese and Indian teenagers write sulky songs about the appalling dullness of suburbia. — Anonymous

When Aaron came home from the tryout, why didn't he take up the coach's challenge to return, to try harder? When Julia discovered that she wasn't as smart as she thought, why did she collapse? The answer in both cases is that these kids are fragile. It doesn't take much for them to give up and retreat, as Aaron did, or to fall apart, as Julia did. Fragility has become a characteristic of American children and teenagers to an extent unknown 25 years ago. That — Leonard Sax

I listen to a lot of music that teenagers are listening to because I'm around them. — Tod Machover

Teaching high school in an inner-city school is not an easy task. Every teacher is responsible for 150 teenagers. The amount of work is just mind-boggling. Remember, you're not just doing a job. You have these kids' futures in your hand; you have to inspire them. — Tony Danza

You think all teenagers care about are musicians and movie stars?
Spend some time in Wisconsin.
We'll blow your socks off. — Joan Bauer

They say teenagers can sleep all day. I often used to look at dogs and be amazed by the way they seemed to sleep for twenty hours a day. But I envied them too. It was the kind of lifestyle I could relate to.
We didn't sleep for twenty hours, but we gave it our best shot. — John Marsden

The whole upbringing was interesting because we grew up Orthodox Jews all the way until we were teenagers. — Benny Fine

I knew," he murmurs. I can hear him over the music only because he says it right in my ear. "Right after we talked in the mall, I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That you were going to be the first girl to break my heart."
My breath catches. I force the smile now. "I haven't broken anything yet, right?"
"You will. Someday. But everybody breaks everything. For now we're fantastic. It's just, the better we get, the harder I realize the fall will be. — Michelle Painchaud

Expired condoms are like nuclear waste: there's nothing sensible you can do with it. — Andrew Smith

Later, when she came to know of the letters he wrote to Congress about Darfur, the teenagers he tutored at the high school on Dixwell, the shelter he volunteered at, she thought of him as a person who did not have a normal spine but had, instead, a firm reed of goodness. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Traditional Judeo-Christian values literally hang in the balance in America. They can be 'forgotten' in a single generation if they are not taught to children and teenagers ... It could happen here if we don't defend what we believe. — James Dobson

He and Charlie were both speechless. They quickly glanced at each other, grinned stupidly like two love-struck teenagers, and bolted after her. — Elena Kincaid

I've killed hundreds of teenagers. Hundreds. And I didn't know why. Why did I enjoy doing it so much? Why? And then I realized - I had a teenager at home! — R.L. Stine

Teenagers think they are invincible — John Green

It is dancing that brings together tribes from all over North America to compete against each other [in pow wows], to share traditional similarities and differences, and to let non-aboriginal people learn about the first cultures on this continent. The dances change over the years, reflecting new generations and their influences, adapting the traditions of their grandparents and their grandparents' grandparents, to be able to exist in this rapidly evolving world.

"There will always be the elders who shake their heads at the younger generation's behaviour and teenagers who push the boundaries of traditions they have been taught. In dancing, though, everyone can be on the same beat, regardless of their fancy footwork or swirling shawls. — Lori Henry

And none of you teenagers have cell phones?"
I wasn't sure what Addie's plan was, but I stepped forward to help her lie her way out of this one. I could tell she wasn't going to answer right. I pointed to all of us in turn, starting with Addie. "She got grounded from hers." Then to Duke. "His fell in the toilet yesterday." Then to Trevor. "His got stolen at a football game." And then pulled mine out. "And mine is out of batteries. — Kasie West

The typical computer network isn't like a house with windows, doors, and locks. It's more like a gauze tent encircled by a band of drunk teenagers with lit matches. — Robert David Steele

It is clear from all these data that the interests of teenagers are not focused around studies, and that scholastic achievement is at most of minor importance in giving status or prestige to an adolescent in the eyes of other adolescents. — James S. Coleman

Though teenagers are generally very interested in sports, they must realise that education is the most important thing in their lives. They must find the right balance. — Kapil Dev

In my research, I learned that the Boxers' kung fu wasn't all that formalized. The vast majority of them didn't belong to some age-old martial arts tradition. They were basically poor, starving teenagers doing the best they could to figure out how to fight, relying more on their mystical beliefs than formal training. — Gene Luen Yang

The teenagers aren't all bad. I love 'em if nobody else does. There ain't nothing wrong with young people. Jus' quit lyin' to 'em. — Moms Mabley

This whole time, I wasn't waiting for something in particular.
Just someone who wanted me.
Not sex.
But me. — Diana Peterfreund

Teenagers are passionate and they want music that speaks within their hearts. It's a big deal for students to listen to Christian music and talk about it at school. Music is a very exciting element of your life when you're love. I think it's huge. — Mark Hall

Older teens tend to write to me and say, 'Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.' — Matthew Tobin Anderson

Teenagers aren't loyal to much of anything - especially Internet stuff. — John Battelle

All teenagers are drama queens inside their minds, even the mousiest of us. We load and reload movies of ourselves in heroic postures and outlandish triumphs, movies that if they were ever to be played in front of an audience of people we know and love, would cause us to shrivel in shame — Alice Pung

Telling teenagers about the health risks of smoking - It will make you wrinkled! It will make you impotent! It will make you dead! - is useless," Harris concludes. "This is adult propaganda; these are adult arguments. It is because adults don't approve of smoking - because there is something dangerous and disreputable about it - that teenagers want to do it. — Malcolm Gladwell

Adults are constantly telling teenagers that it's what's on the inside that matters. It's always painful to find out that adults have lied to you. — Janette Rallison

Your supporters can help you think in new ways, solve problems, and burst through barriers. — Beverly K. Bachel

I was surfing the Internet for a different sort of education. I surfed for photos of circus freaks and synonyms for the word intercourse and for answers to why staring at the stars in the evening tore my heart with longing. — Maggie Stiefvater

Three weeks after he climbed out the kitchen window, the boy was outdoors with his cousins - teenagers like him - laying a picnic for dinner beneath the stars. It was then he would have heard the drones approaching, followed by the whiz of the missiles. It was a direct hit. The boy and his cousins were blown to pieces. All that remained of the boy was the back of his head, his flowing hair still clinging to it. The boy had turned sixteen years old a few weeks earlier and now he had been killed by his own government. He was the third US citizen to be killed in operations authorized by the president in two weeks. The first was his father — Jeremy Scahill

For the love of God, unless you're prepping for Rigoletto at the Met, go easy on the eyeliner. — Cheryl Cory

Nowadays, teenagers are so fast and quick to see through any form of manipulation. Sitting down and just thinking of something is like watching really bad pornography. — Nicolas Winding Refn

While I was travelling and I kind of had the classic realisation - that I guess most teenagers have at some point - that time's gonna run out and that's not in my power to change that. — George Ezra

Viola had a harrowing story about riding a bicycle west out of the burnt-out ruins of a Connecticut suburb, aged fifteen, harboring vague notions of California but set upon by passersby long before she got there, grievously harmed, joining up with other half feral teenagers in a marauding gang and then slipping away from them, walking alone for a hundred miles, whispering French to herself because all the horror in her life had transpired in English and she thought switching languages might save her, wandering into a town through which the Symphony passed five years later. — Emily St. John Mandel

Since she got a cause and stopped being funny. I think she's real funny, but lately it's all been hearts and flowers and tears and saving teenagers and creating a role model. And that ain't funny. No giggles there. — Andy Richter

I missed out on everything. Sometimes on the street I see teenagers hanging out and going to the movies, going to concerts, and I get so jealous. — Adriana Lima

Mai grins at Mycroft. 'You know that's slightly ridiculous, don't you?'
He smiled. 'Why?'
'Because. . . because you're teenagers.' Mai's expression says it should be obvious. 'Mycroft, this isn't like figuring out who spray-painted some guy's car. This is murder.'
'The principles are the same' he insists.
'But you're both minors. And you have no access to police information, no experience, no forensics lab, no authority. . . '
'Mai, are you trying to bring me down or something?'
Gus, who usually only gets emotive about things like soccer, suddenly leans forward. 'I think you should do it.' He glances at me and Mycroft in turn. 'This homeless guy, it's not like his death is going to be a major priority, is it? The police won't bend over backwards to bring his killer to justice or anything. He was a derelict with no family. So you two are the only ones who even care. — Ellie Marney

There was a genocide unfolding against Bosnian Muslims and we, in the United Kingdom, were incredibly angered - a teenager at the time, 15 years old, so my young teenage mind processed that in a way typical to the very passionate and angry and black-and-white way that teenagers often can do. — Maajid Nawaz

I think bullies are very lonely people. I always tell teenagers not to bully others because it's unacceptable. We need to teach students to value themselves and to not put others down. — Nick Vujicic

I was fourteen when I fell in love with a goddess. Goddesses have that effect, even on teenagers. — Debbie Howells

The rest of them moved toward the fence, in complete silence. Each of the teenagers jumped swiftly onto the iron spikes. With a blurry speed, they climbed up onto the sharp finials, and leaped down to the other side — A.O. Peart

Let me be very blunt: the heterosexual transmission of AIDS is, in Africa, a function of truly pathological promiscuity. So this is really a violence issue - not the same violence we deal with in Boston, where teenagers stab and shoot each other, but the violence of African men who are killing themselves, and killing African women and children, with pathological promiscuity. — Eugene Rivers

Sadly, American teenagers are to a weightless vacuum as seat cushions are to polyurethane foam - — Marisha Pessl

Relationships change even more than people. It's like two people changing. It's exponentially more volatile. Especially two teenagers. — Ned Vizzini

At its most intense, the admissions process didn't force kids to be Lisa Simpson; it turned them into Eddie Haskell. ("You look lovely in that new dress, Ms. Admissions Counselor.") It guaranteed that teenagers would pursue life with a single ulterior motive, while pretending they weren't. It coated their every undertaking in a thin lacquer of insincerity. Befriending people in hopes of a good rec letter; serving the community to advertise your big heart; studying hard just to puff up the GPA and climb the greasy poll of class rank - nothing was done for its own sake. Do good; do well; but make sure you can prove it on a college app. So — Andrew Ferguson

If the only one who can kill an angel can't do it, then who can?'
It's a good question, one that takes me a minute to come up with an answer. 'Obadiah West can. Him and his freedom fighters. I'm just a teenager.'
'History is filled with teenagers who lead the fight. Joan of Arc. Okita Soji, the samurai. Alexander the Great. They were all teenagers when they began leading their armies. I think we're back to those times again, kid. — Susan Ee

For almost a quarter of a century, Teen Ink has been encouraging young people to write - and then has published those pieces. These heartfelt essays and poems explore the issues faced by teenagers today. I applaud their efforts because they not only help young people deal with their own lives but also encourage the budding authors of the next generation. — Anita Silvey

Since the tragedy of Marina's death, her parents have heard from strangers around the globe surprised to find themselves writing to share the impact of "meeting" Marina through her words: Jewish teenagers visiting a series of concentration camps while on "The March of the Living" and finding specific comfort and renewed purpose in her writings; college peers living more mindfully; musicians writing songs inspired by her; older readers making midlife recalibrations and career changes, whether they are returning to school or shifting to a nonprofit or finishing that manuscript; people simply rediscovering a sense of hope. These new life paths all build from Marina's own sense that it's never too late to change, that we must take action, that we are indeed "in this together. — Marina Keegan

I don't really have time or interest in doing a lot of the crazy things that some of my teenage peers do, mostly because I have such a hectic life that I don't need to add to that chaos by creating my own teenage drama like a lot of teenagers do. — Mikaela Shiffrin

They rarely look at Baba
the teenagers
and then only with cold indifference, or even subtle disdain, as if my father should have known better than to allow old age and decay to happen to him. — Khaled Hosseini

That was the funny thing. What happened to John would pass for his classmates, but for John it was a long challenging road ahead of him. Who knew where he would be sent, maybe a juvenile detention center? He might keep in touch with a few friends if his parents let him, but he would never return to Wakefield High. His peers had no clue the journey ahead of him, that his life was changed forever.
And they had no idea what lay ahead for Lilly. No one knew she had been given a task by the Archangels to fight a war against pure evil. They had no idea that Lilly would spend most of her free time not training for a marathon, but training to kill demons. John and Lilly were not all too different. — Ellie Elisabeth

Danger comes in many forms, I suppose. For some people, it might be jumping off a bridge or climbing impossible moutains. For others, it could be a tawdry love affair or telling off a mean-looking bus driver because he doesn't like to stop for noisy teenagers. It could be cheating at cards or eating a peanut even though you're allergic. For me, danger might be getting out from the protective cloak of my family and venturing into the world more of my own, even though I don't know what- or who- awaits me. — David Levithan

My focus has kind of been on teenagers, you know, and I think we've got a huge crisis right now in America, among our teens. — Sean Covey

I like writing about teenagers because it's a time of great change and conflict. Up to then, you accept what your parents tell you. — Joan Lingard

I don't think I ever intended specifically to write for the young adult market. It's just that when the idea for City of Bones came to me, I knew the main characters were teenagers. In my mind they were just very clearly the ages they were, which turned out to mean it was a YA novel. — Cassandra Clare

The only way that I have seen to keep teenagers out of one another's arms is to give them a bigger, more wonderful goal to offset all the distractions common to their youth. For a young man, that goal should include preparing for a delightful and profitable career, doing something he really enjoys doing. For a young woman, it includes preparing to be the ideal wife, mother and administrative assistant such a passionate and goal-oriented young man will need — Gregg Harris

Steve Van Zandt, the poor guy, doesn't get to play enough as it is with me hogging a lot of the solos. Steve has always been a fabulous guitarist. Back from the day when we were both teenagers together, he led his band and played lead and was always a hot guitar player. — Bruce Springsteen

Group membership can modify individuals' perceptions of themselves. Unable to separate their personal introspection from the ways they believe other people perceive them, teenagers may have what psychologists call an "imaginary audience", meaning that they believed that other people are just as attuned to their appearance and behavior as they are. — Alexandra Robbins

The best way to teach is how you live your life. — Gina Greenlee

It hurts to get things out in the open, but it hurts even more not to. — Chrissy Moon

I have lived my life backwards as compared to my peers. Everyone did incredibly stupid things as teenagers and pre-teens. I didn't. I was the one telling everybody that they were incredibly stupid. Now that they are all past that stage and we are all much older - I am the one doing incredibly stupid things. I have figured that I've earned that right, by now! You have to earn the right to be stupid. — C. JoyBell C.

She was a wonderful teenage girl who had the miraculous power to cure herself from any wound, either physical or mental. With her own salty tears, she would cleanse her raw wounds. And her breaths were given, as though not to breathe but, rather, to fan her sores. — Khadija Rupa

I write books for all age groups - young kids, teenagers and adults - because I get a range of different ideas. — Catherine Jinks

People say 'teenage girls aren't so clever. Your characters should be less articulate to reflect our youth.' People who say that aren't spending time with teenagers. — Diablo Cody

Compared to children raised in an intact, married family, children raised in single-parent or cohabiting homes are significantly more likely to suffer psychological problems such as depression, to get into trouble with the law, to become pregnant as teenagers, and to drop out of high school.75 — W. Bradford Wilcox