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Adults Quotes

Browse 2979 quotes about Adults.

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Adults Quotes

“Or about how when you're a child, to stop you from following the crowd you're assaulted with the line "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?" but when you're an adult and to be different is suddenly a crime, people seem to be saying, "Hey. Everyone else is jumping off a bridge. Why aren't you?”

PeopleIfsChildrenDifferentSeemsLinesCrimeAdultsCrowdsFollowingHeyBridgesConformityJumpingJumping OffFollowing The CrowdJumping Off A Bridge
Book:A Fraction of the Whole
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“When we heard about the hippies, the barely more than boys and girls who decided to try something different ... we laughed at them. We condemned them, our children, for seeking a different future. We hated them for their flowers, for their love, and for their unmistakable rejection of every hideous, mistaken compromise that we had made throughout our hollow, money-bitten, frightened, adult lives”

TryingChildrenMadeDifferentGirlBoysHeardFlowerAdultsDecidedOur ChildrenSeekingCompromiseHatedRejectionFrightenedLaughedMistakenHollowHippieHideousBoy And GirlHippi
Author:June Jordan
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“I’m not a child. Don’t talk to me like I am. (Kiara) No, you’re worse. You’re an adult who still thinks the world is a beautiful place, filled with people who will help you just for the sake of being nice. Wake up and smell the bloodbath and humility the rest of us have to cope with. (Syn)”

PeopleThinkingWorldChildrenStillsHelpingBeautifulNiceHumilityAdultsWake UpFilledSakeSmellBeing NiceTalk To MeBeautiful PlacesDon't Talk To Me
Book:Born Of Night: Number 1 in series
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“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.”

ShouldTryingHumansChildrenFearFailingMiddleLessonsSafeAdultsGet UpAshamedCautiousTry AgainMiddle AgedShrinkingResigned
Book:The Autobiography of Malcolm X
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“But the young educated adults of the 90s -- who were, of course, the children of the same impassioned infidelities and divorces Mr. Updike wrote about so beautifully -- got to watch all this brave new individualism and self-expression and sexual freedom deteriorate into the joyless and anomic self-indulgence of the Me Generation. Today's sub-40s have different horrors, prominent among which are anomie and solipsism and a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without once having loved something more than yourself.”

ChildrenDifferentSelfTodayYoungCoursesWatchesGenerationsDyingLonelinessExpressionHorrorAdultsBraveDivorceEducatedIndividualismInfidelityIndulgenceSelf ExpressionProminentSelf IndulgenceImpassionedSolipsismAnomie
Author:David Foster Wallace
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“Children are often envied for their supposed imaginations, but the truth is that adults imagine things far more than children do. Most adults wander the world deliberately blind, living only inside their heads, in their fantasies, in their memories and worries, oblivious to the present, only aware of the past or future.”

WorldChildrenPastImaginationMemoriesWorryFantasyImagineTruth IsAdultsBlindWanderEnviedOblivious
Book:The World to Come
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“Children have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish allusions.”

BelieveChildrenStillsBookUseHumanityStuffPsychologyDevilAdultsAngelLogicBoringClarityBelieve In GodWitchSociologyObsoletePunctuationDetestAllusionGoblin
Author:Isaac Bashevis Singer
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“So you go away from where you were afraid. Some stay; some go; it's a big difference, leaving the humiliations of childhood, the morbid fear. We didn't have much to say to each other, the ones that left and the ones that stayed. Children get shamed by fear but you can't tell the adults that; they don't care. They make children into dead things like they are. If there's something left alive in you, you run. You run from the poor little child on her knees; fear burned the skin off all right; she's still on her knees, dead and raw and tender.”

IfsChildrenLittlesStillsBigsCareRunningLeftDifferencesPoorAliveChildhoodAdultsSkinsLeavingDon't CareKneesGoing AwayBurnedHumiliationMorbid
Author:Andrea Dworkin
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“It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.”

PeopleChildrenPersonsFeelingsBodyPainSoundCryMovementTearsComfortAdultsIncreaseInjusticeDareGravesRelaxUnnecessaryEvokeResonanceRigidityHumiliateCrying Child
Author:Alexander Lowen
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“I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.”

PeopleMenYearsBelieveChildrenLittlesStoriesFeelingsFeltRealizingTenCapableAdultsAbsenceTranslateDemian
Author:Hermann Hesse
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“Being sent to bed is a terrible command to all children, because it means the most public possible humiliation in front of adults, the confession that they bear the stigma of childhood, of being small and having a child's need for sleep.”

NeedsMeanChildrenSleepChildhoodFrontsBearsTerribleBedAdultsCommandConfessionHumiliationStigma
Book:The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig: Burning Secret, A Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, Journey into the Past
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“The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading. It isn’t achieved by the book alone, nor by the child alone, nor by the adult who’s reading aloud—it’s the relationship winding between all three, bringing them together in easy harmony.”

InspirationalChildrenPersonsBookTogetherThreeReadingEasyFireAchieveEmotionalAdultsHarmonySparksReading BooksLiteracyRaising ChildrenReading Aloud
Author:Mem Fox
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“Granny bit her lip. She was never quite certain about children, thinking of them-when she thought about them at all-as coming somewhere between animals and people. She understood babies. You put milk in one end and kept the other as clean as possible. Adults were even easier, because they did the feeding and cleaning themselves. But in between was a world of experience that she had never really inquired about. As far as she was aware, you just tried to stop them catching anything fatal and hoped that it would all turn out all right.”

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Author:Terry Pratchett
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“The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.”

IfsChildrenHateCausesBlackWaterAnimalAudienceRocksAdultsI HateFishesCrowdsBotherEnjoymentStomachPoolCoinsHandfulTanksSealsTossInfectionLodgesUlcersZookeepers
Book:American Psycho: Picador Classic
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“The "non-profit" institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its "product" is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their "product" is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.”

MenHumansChildrenSelfYoungHuman BeingsChangedProductsAdultsInstitutionsPatientShoesProfitAgentsHuman LifeYoung ManPairsGoodsRegulationSuppliesPair Of ShoesChange AgentNon Profit
Book:Managing the Non-Profit Organization
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“The beggarly question of parentage--what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.”

PeopleThinkingMeanChildrenLittlesDoeSoulMatterFeelingsCareParentClassVirtueBloodAdultsRegardBottomOur TimeDislikeEntitledIsmsDoes It Matter
Author:Thomas Hardy
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“I know,” said Peter. “Perhaps better than anyone. But you can’t stay a child forever. To choose to speak into Echo’s Well is to choose illusion. To choose to avoid the responsibilities of being an adult. The real trick—the real choice—is to keep the best of the child you were, without forgetting when you grow up. “It is the best of both worlds, Jack. Being a child is to believe in magic everywhere… “…but even Peter Pan had to grow up one day.”

KnowsWorldBelieveWellsChildrenSaidRealChoicesSpeakGrowsForgetResponsibilityForeverGrowing UpMagicOne DayIllusionAdultsTricksPeterEchoesBest Of Both Worlds
Book:Dawn of the Dragons: Here, There Be Dragons; The Search for the Red Dragon
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“In reality, genuine epiphanies are extremely rare. In contemporary adult life maturation & acquiescence to reality are gradual processes. Modern usage usually deploys epiphany as a metaphor. It is usually only in dramatic representations, religious iconography, and the 'magical thinking' of children that insight is compressed to a sudden blinding flash.”

ThinkingChildrenRealityProcessReligiousModernAdultsMetaphorInsightGenuineContemporaryDramaticFlashRepresentationEpiphanyUsageAcquiescenceIconographyMagical Thinking
Author:David Foster Wallace
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“Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming tonight along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you into a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don't know for sure, but we want you to be prepared." This was the reward for living in the Netherlands. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it.”

KnowsMenWantChildrenStoriesMightTogetherTurnsStuffBlackBedSixAdultsPreparedRewardsShoesEightFormerKicksRepeatsTonightPacksBe PreparedCandySpainTurkeysBishopsNetherlands
Author:David Sedaris
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“There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.”

IfsWantShouldChildrenLittlesSometimesUseYoungSongCoursesTeachBalanceAdultsRewardsMusicalComplainingTendenciesVulnerabilityInherentAgain And AgainRhymeSensitivityRepetitionStimulusRefrainChorusNurseryYoung ChildrenBalladsNursery Rhymes
Author:Oliver Sacks
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“A terrorist doesn't let strangers into her flat because they might be undercover police or intelligence agents, but her children bring their mates home and they run all over the place The terrorist doesn't know that one of these kids has bugged every room in her house, made copies of all her computer files and stolen her address book. The kid works for CHERUB CHERUB agents are aged between 10 and 17. They live in the real world, slipping under adult radar and getting information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail.”

KnowsWorldChildrenMadeBookRealHomeMightRunningKidsHouseRoomsInformationComputerAdultsPoliceStrangerCriminalsTerroristAgentsAddressesFlatsCopiesJailReal WorldMatesStolenFilesRadarSlippingUndercoverCherubsAddress Books
Author:Robert Muchamore
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“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children's approach to life. They're people who don't give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn't much, either.”

PeopleKnowsGivingChildrenSometimesMotivationalGrowsSimplePleasureGrowing UpDegreesApproachAdultsContentmentNot AfraidDelightedDisneylandSimple Pleasures
Author:Walt Disney
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“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.”

WorldLooksChildrenTwoImportantIdeasRealSidesLinesGenerationsRocksWallAdultsBuiltMereSevenBoundariesClimbsOver ItGatesGeometryAmbiguous
Book:The Dispossessed
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“After all, when we were children, when things went wrong, there wasn’t much we could do to help put it right. But now we’re adults, now we can. That’s the thing, you see? Look at us, Akira. After all this time, we can finally put things right. Remember, old chap, how we used to play those games? Over and over? How we used to pretend we were detectives searching for my father? Now we’re grown, we can at last put things right.”

LooksChildrenPlayHelpingLastsRememberUsedFatherGamesAdultsDetectivesChapsGame Over
Book:When We Were Orphans
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