“We were the children of white flight, the first generation to grow up in postwar American suburbs. By the time the ’60s rolled around, many of us, the gay ones especially, were eager to make a U-turn and fly back the other way. Whether or not the city was obsolete, we couldn’t imagine our personal futures in any other form. The street and the skyline signified to us what the lawn and the highway signified to our parents: a place to breathe free.” WayFirstsChildrenFormTurnsGrowsParentWhiteCitiesGrowing UpImagineGenerationsStreetsGayBreatheFlightHighwaysObsoleteSuburbsLawnsSkylines Author:Herbert Muschamp
“It would be hard to imagine Heaven without children. It wouldn't be Heaven! It would be a pretty boring place without children. What are we going to do, all get to be old people and then stagnate and that's the end of it? Once all those that are already born grow up, the place would really lack life without new generations of children! If there were no children, it would be a dead society.” PeopleIfsChildrenEndsHardWould BeHeavenGrowsBornGrowing UpImagineGenerationsBoringHeavenlyOld PeopleNew Generation Author:David Berg
“Each generation imagines that we're all going to hell. Each generation goes through a little hell and comes out heat tempered and better than before.” LittlesHumanityHellImagineGenerationsHeatImagine That Author:Paul Harvey
“Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves and the teacher says: Imagine what it does to your TEETH! So Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to improve.” PeopleNeedsYearsDoeSawsTeacherImagineGenerationsCoupleHumorousManagementDrinkingFolksGlassesExperimentsTeethGradesNailsCokeBeveragesCoca ColaSixth GradeOld Car Author:Dave Barry
“I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.” MenLooksI CanRealEndsMomentsMillionsFantasyImagineGenerationsTerribleDramaHorrorEssentialsBenefitsInjusticeTrialsCrueltyRevolutionarySincerelyFuture GenerationUtopiaMassacresDeportation Book:The World's Last Night: And Other Essays Source: The World's Last Night: And Other Essays
“War is a culture, bellicosity is addictive, defeat for a community that imagines itself to be history's eternal victim can be as intoxicating as victory. How long will it take for the Serbs to realize that the Milosevic years have been an unmitigated disaster for Serbia, the net result of Milosevic's policies being the economic and cultural ruin of the entire region, including Serbia, for several generations? Alas, one thing we can be sure of, that will not happen soon.” YearsLongHas BeensWarHappensCultureRealizingCommunityResultsImagineGenerationsOne ThingEconomicPolicyVictoryEternalVictimIncludingDefeatDisasterRuinsRegionsAlasSerbia Author:Susan Sontag
“Imagine you're copying a very long document, and occasionally you'll put an A where there should be a C. And that mistake has been translated down through the generations, and more mistakes have accumulated. So the longer the lineage has been in existence, the more mistakes the sequence is going to have.” ShouldLongHas BeensExistenceMistakeImagineGenerationsDocumentsSequenceCopyingLineage Author:Spencer Wells
“...It's all sort of dreams and it's all illusion. It's theater; it's not real. We're making up stories, you know, and people tend to run into you and believe you are your characters. And I suppose the funny thing is the longer you go, you do become sort of some version of [your characters]. You both diverge from them - you know - you live, but you also permanently inhabit that geography and that mental space - and so you do morph a little bit. We do become what we imagine.” PeopleKnowsBelieveLittlesRealCharacterStoriesWisdomDreamRealityRunningBitsCommunitySpaceHistoryImagineGenerationsHuman NatureLittle BitIllusionTheaterIndividualityVersionsIdeologyGeographyFunny ThingsMaking Up Author:Bruce Springsteen
“Before I had my first child, I never really looked forward in anticipation to the future. As I watched my son grow and learn, I began to imagine the world this generation of children would live in. I thought of the children they would have, and of their children. I felt connected to life both before my time and beyond it. Children are our link to future generations that we will never see.” WorldFirstsChildrenGrowsFeltImagineGenerationsSonConnectedMy TimeMy SonLinksParenthoodAnticipationFuture GenerationThis Generation Author:Louise Hart
“If you start thinking about the kids being born now, for them the computer is ancient history. So one imagines that when children think of it as the only place to be, because there isn't anywhere else, then the geniuses of those generations will find their way into doing something that is impressive and as good as a Shakespeare or a Cervantes. But nowadays, we can't see that. We're not close enough to it yet.” IfsThinkingWayChildrenEnoughKidsBornImagineGenerationsGeniusComputerAncientImagine ThatImpressiveAncient History Author:Robert Coover
“Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life.” MenWorldPurposeChoicesLostSpeakGivenDestinyImagineGenerationsThis WorldBlindEndlessAlternativesVoidImagine ThatSchemesConstraintsMazesEnslavementNo Turning Back Book:The Border Trilogy: Picador Classic Source: The Border Trilogy: Picador Classic
“I think paranoia goes from generation to generation. It's convenient to imagine that there's a few people controlling everything, that way it's manageable and small. But that's not life, life is messy.” PeopleThinkingWayLife IsImagineGenerationsImagine ThatConvenientMessyParanoiaManageableControlling Everything Author:Robert Downey, Jr.
“Greatest generation came through some stuff that we can't even imagine - the Depression, World War I - and all they wanted after that was a breather and a calm and a quiet life, and they get us.” WorldWarWantedStuffImagineGenerationsQuietCalmWar Of The WorldsWorld War IQuiet LifeGreatest Generation Author:P. J. O'Rourke
“Graduates, I'm asking each of you, at some point, to act up, be misbehaved. Buck the system. Fight for what you believe in. This is the time to do it. You're the ones to do it. Your world, is like no other generation, you actually get to create the world that you can imagine.” WorldBelieveFightingImagineGenerationsAskingGraduatesBucks Author:Mark Ruffalo
“Imagine the wars we would've avoided if prior generations had a website where they could debate tragedy and politics in terse sentences?” IfsWarPoliticsImagineGenerationsTragedySentencesDebateAvoidedWebsite Author:Eugene Mirman
“Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.” MenWorldGivingStillsLightLawFatherRightsImagineGenerationsBloodIdealsSakeFoundingPerilRule Of LawOur Founding FathersCharterInaugurationInaugural AddressExpedience Author:Barack Obama
“Maybe it's because I grew up during the MTV generation, but to me a perfect song is one I can imagine a music video to, a song that can take you into a dream.” I CanDreamSongPerfectImagineGenerationsGrewGrew UpVideoMtv Author:Dan Chaon
“It's possible for me to imagine a generation of people maybe two generations removed from you who might decide that we have an adversarial relationship with technology.” PeopleTwoMightTechnologyImagineGenerations Author:Chuck Klosterman
“Imagine living in abject poverty and not knowing anything other than that for generations. Or alternatively, imagine being born into a really wealthy family, but there was no real love. Everyone's living these extraordinary, interesting lives whether they know it or not.” KnowsRealBornInterestingPovertyKnowingImagineGenerationsExtraordinaryWealthyReal LoveNot KnowingLove EveryoneInteresting Life Author:Annie Lennox