People never grow up, they just learn how to act in public.

Camus-boy, you’re always going to be the same you, just older. It’s not like there’s a moment when you wake up and go, Shit, I’m grown-up, I don’t feel like myself anymore.’ I don’t tell...

For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.

On est forcé d’être des enfants toute sa vie. C’est pour ça que ceux qui veulent devenir des hommes sont malheureux. Vous voulez chanter l’opéra? On rit de vous. Vous voulez vous conduire en monsieur...

Now, as an adult, my hopes for the future were simple: I wanted to be alone, and to be surrounded by flowers. It seemed, finally, that I might get exactly what I wanted.

when we were kidslaying around the lawnon ourbellieswe often talkedabouthowwe’d like todieandwe allagreed on thesamething;we’d alllike to diefucking(althoughnone of ushaddone anyfucking)and nowthatwe are hardlykidsany longerwe think moreabouthownot todieandalthoughwe’rereadymost ofuswouldprefer todo italoneunder thesheetsnowthatmost ofushave fuckedour livesaway.

I kept thinking there were two kinds of adults: There were…miserable creatures who scoured the earth in search of something to hurt. And then there were people like my parents, who walked around zombically, doing...

The last remnants of Deanna the child–the idealist, the sheltered elite–had been torn loose by tonight’s tragedies, slain with the same bullet that had felled her would-be killer. She had no idea who the new...

On occasion, it occurs to adults that they are allowed to do all the things that being a child prevented them from doing. But those desires change when you’re not looking. There was a time...

To make a difference in the world, it only takes one optimistic person, who can gather millions of people to make the change.

Every child born into the world has a divine mission to fulfill.As the child grows into adulthood, he or she must act to fulfill the divine mission.

There’s something to that in both directions,” said Ekaterin mildly. “Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It’s so infuriating. It took me the...

Children wear their natures like brightly-colored clothes; that’s why they lie so transparently. Adulthood is the art of deceit.

They sealed this promise by hooking pinkies, the way they used to, long ago, when promises didn’t hurt as much.

A preserved childhood is better than a repaired adulthood

I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still...

He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them,...

Everyone else we knew growing up is the same: image of their parents, no matter how loud they told themselves they’d be different

A man that knows your worth doesn’t need to be told how to treat you. That’s a given! You won’t have to question his feelings, his motives, nor his intentions. How will I know? You...

Age is only a number. Keep an active life.

Soon, he would become an adult. And when he did, there would be not going back because adulthood was akin to what his father had once said about being a war hero: one you became...

Bloom of adulthood. Try a whiff of that. On your back in the dark you remember. Ah you remember. Cloudless May day. She joins you in the little summerhouse. Entirely of logs. Both larch and...

Oh, you mysterious girls, when you are fifty-two we shall find you out; you must come into the open then. If the mouth has fallen sourly yours the blame: all the meanness your youth concealed...

I had been riding horses before my memory kicked in, so my life with horses had no beginning. It simply appeared from the fog of infancy. I survived a difficult childhood by traveling on the...

His body had almost no hair and his naked little circumcised johnson was nearly as pale as the rest of him, white as a boy’s – perhaps over time one’s genitals emerge from the pots...

But grownups were always in a turmoil, every possible action muddied over by thoughts of the consequences, by self-doubt, by selfimage, by feelings of love and responsibility. Every possible choice seemed to have drawbacks, and...

I remember everything,’ Bette Midler flatly notes. ‘But you know how in life, you tend to hold grudges? Well, I don’t do that any more. Bad, bad stuff. I did as a young person, but...

Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.

As a man begins to understand the sacrifices he must make to live the life he dreams of, he often loses his courage for such a life.

Already, though, she understood the difference between being a child and being an adult. The difference is when someone says he can keep the bad things away, a child believes him.

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from...

Moral obligations verses Legal obligations. Legally, you must abide by the laws of the land or face the consequences of being fined, imprisoned or both. Moral obligations tend to lean more towards a spiritual nature...

If you can’t find any fun during childhood, you naturally won’t look for it as you grow up to maturity. You will grow ‘hard,’ and look upon fun as foolish. Also, if you don’t furnish...

The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4

Stupid girl. You will never win anyone through pity. You must create the right kind of dream, the sober, adult kind of magic: illusion born from disillusion.

Children’s and YA books are about being brave and kind, about learning wisdom and love, about that journey into and through maturity that we all keep starting, and starting again, no matter how old we...

This was when he first suspected that the kindly child-loving God extolled by his headmistress might not exist. As it turned out, most major world events suggested the same. But for Theo’s sincerely godless generation,...

Nobody truly becomes an adult. The child we have been is always there, deep inside of us. As time passes, we think we’re growing, but maturity is only an illusion; a hindrance to our free...

We are accustomed to repeating the cliché, and to believing, that ‘our most precious resource is our children.’ But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can...

The child learns so easily because he has a natural gift, but adults, because they are tyrants, ignore natural gifts and say that children must learn through the same process that they learned by. We...

All fathers are liars . . . If you want to be a father, you have to be prepared to become a liar.

The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads and revealed their faces, animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to...

The whole time I pretend I have mental telepathy. And with my mind only, I’ll say — or think? — to the target, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something...

It’s strange how in childhood it feels like tomorrow won’t come until the end of forever, but in adulthood it feels like the end of forever could come tomorrow.

To both the racist and the puritan, childhood is not a time of life that we grow out of, as the life of the child grows out of the life of the parent or as...

But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage...

When I was a kid ‘¦I liked burning ants with a magnifying glass ‘¦.but I think that progressed into adulthood where I now believe in aliens.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.

The adult world may seem a cold and empty place, with no fairies and no Father Christmas, no Toyland or Narnia, no Happy Hunting Ground where mourned pets go, and no angels – guardian or...

Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.