Children take joy in their work and sometimes as adults we forget that’s something we should continue doing.

How can it be, after all this concentrated effort and separation, how can it be that I still resemble, so very closely, my own detestable mother?

One of the most jolting days of adulthood comes the first time you run out of toilet paper. Toilet paper, up until this point, always just existed. And now it’s a finite resource, constantly in...

He was still a kid inside. His body had grown, stretched, towered, tanned its skin, hardened its muscle, darkened its tawny shock of long hair, tightened its lines around jaw and eyes, thickened fingers and...

Don’t you find it odd,” she continued, “that when you’re a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try.

And why is it that so many years later it is so easy to distinguish the bullies from their prey? Adult bodies surrounding the children of long ago. The years have changed nothing.

Never tell a child that something it’s too hard

Above all, staring at my old bedroom ceiling, I feel safe. Cocooned from the world; wrapped up in cotton wool. No one can get me here. No one even knows I’m here. I won’t get...

If we can create habits at a young age, these habits will carry into adulthood.

On the other hand, when you grow up you will discover that some of the people in this world never passed beyond the stage of the cave-man.

When you’re a child the world forbears you, allows you your flights of imagination, your feelings of specialness. But sooner or later the privileges are withdrawn, and all you’re left with is a stunned bitterness...

Interesting, Miles thought. Like himself, Father Mark, as a child, had been reassured by the imagined proximity of God, whereas adults, perhaps because they so often were up to no good, took more comfort from...

Being a child sucked. Being a teenager was worse. And being an adult seemed so far away that I had a better chance at swimming the length of the ocean than growing up.

I want to know we’re not pushing children toward the traditions of life, but instead cultivating them to grow in their own specific purposes, and make the dreams of their youth become realities as they...

Eventually he understood that he was crying for himself. He was ashamed of the man whom he had become, mourning the man whom he had expected to be when he’d been a boy.

Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control, perhaps even depends on it. I mean that mirage of dominion over our own life that allows us to feel like adults, for we associate maturity...

I felt the taste of mortality in my mouth, and at that moment I understood that I was not going to live forever. It takes a long time to learn that, but when you finally...

It’s hard to have done all one’s growing up since 33 — but that’s a damn sight better than not growing up at all.

Treasure the beauty of youthful life and the wisdom of adulthood.

Most insensible, corrupt, cheap, disrespectful young girls run after bad, rude, cocky, nonsensical boys, but a mature, educated, thoughtful, virtuos lady opts for a wise, well breed, experienced, humble, modest gentleman.

I once tried to give him a friendly little “drugs chat”. He politely corrected me on every single fact, then said he’d noticed I drank above the recommended guidelines of Red Bull and did I...

People thought becoming an adult meant that all your acts had consequences; in fact it was just the opposite.

Being silly is still allowed, not excluded by adulthood. What’s excluded by adulthood is thoughtlessness, so be thoughtful and silly

Sum of life; Birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, parenthood, old age and death.

Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the...

That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you...

One of the things I dread about becoming an adult is that sooner or later you begin letting sentimentality get in the way of simple logic.

The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour.

‎With adulthood comes responsibility.

Magda looks at me as if I’ve gone mad. Or I’ve grown up. It’s kind of the same thing.

There was a time when that kind of thing looked like the kingdom of heaven, but somewhere along the line it had lost its glow. Maybe that was just the cost of growing up. And...

She had the feeling, the tingling, lingering sense that something or someone life altering was just over the horizon. She had no idea what it was, but she wanted to rush headlong to bring it...

Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines...

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...