“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
“When you're a kid, you have no power. You're physically small and weak, and adults are constantly telling you what to do. So it's incredibly compelling to imagine yourself not only as someone to whom exciting things happen but as someone who is more than those around you. The problem is that then you begin to grow up and realize you're just a lowly muggle. … Is it possible that all of us, weaned on these stories, end up inevitably disappointed with mundane life as it actually exists?” EndsStoriesProblemHappensKidsGrowsRealizingGrowing UpImagineAdultsWeakExcitingThings HappenDisappointedCompellingMundaneExciting ThingsMugglesMundane Life Author:Paul Waldman
“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
“Imagine that for hundreds of years your most formative traumas, your daily suffering and pain, the abuse you live through, the terror you live with, are unspeakable - not the basis of literature. You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs.... You learn how to leave your body and create someone else who takes over when you cannot stand it any more. You develop a self who is ingratiating and obsequious and imitative and aggressively passive and silent - you learn, in a word, femininity.” MenYearsSelfBodyPainSufferingFatherLiteratureGrowsGrowing UpImagineMouthsAbuseBasesDown AndSilentTerrorLegsTraumaYour BodyHorribleImagine ThatPassiveFemininityAnother ManCoveringUnspeakableSuffering And Pain Author:Catharine MacKinnon
“Barack wants to stop all children from working on the farm... Can you imagine this? I just, I can't fathom that. Did you ever think we’d grow up in America and see something like that? Let me take it one step further. He wants to disallow the 4-H from training children to work on a farm.” ThinkingWantChildrenI CanAmericaGrowsStepsGrowing UpImagineTrainingLet MeBarackFarmsFathom Author:John Raese
“When I was growing up - say in the fifties - the thirties to me didn't even exist. I couldn't even imagine them in any kind of way, so I don't expect anyone growing up now is gonna even understand what the sixties were all about, anymore than I could the thirties or twenties.” WayKindGrowing UpGrowingImagineTwentiesSixty Author:Bob Dylan
“When I was growing up, I was as socially outcast as any nerd could possibly be. I was in the chess club, I brought D&D stuff to school, I had every game system you could imagine, I spent countless hours at arcades, computer camp, loud presence in the Latin Club. All that stuff.” SchoolGamesStuffHoursGrowing UpGrowingImagineComputerClubsChessLoudLatinCampsNerdOutcastArcades Author:Chris Hardwick
“I used to live in Los Angeles, but I didn't want my kids to grow up in the thick of the obsession with movie-making. There's a lot of sensationalism and superficiality. I wanted to take my kids out of that and raise 'em up elsewhere, and I wanted to stop being preoccupied with whether my star is on the rise or the descent. I can't imagine having a much greater life, and I don't want to be preoccupied with things that don't matter. But of course, ironically, my two oldest daughters have decided that they're going to be actresses.” WantI CanTwoMatterKidsWantedUsedCoursesStarsGrowsGrowing UpGreaterImagineDaughterDecidedRaisesActressesObsessionEmsLos AngelesThickElsewhereDescentSuperficialityMovie MakingSensationalism Author:Woody Harrelson
“I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren.” ThinkingChildrenReasonStrongGrowsFeltGrowing UpImagineCalmMy ChildrenNo ReasonGrandchildrenMy GrandchildrenStay Calm Author:Angelina Jolie
“I love Chicago. It was an awesome place to grow up. It's a big city but it doesn't feel like one. I can't imagine that if I had kids I would raise them anywhere else besides Chicago.” IfsFeelsI CanBigsKidsGrowsCitiesGrowing UpImagineRaisesChicagoImagine ThatBig Cities Author:Chris McCaughan
“Growing up with Tumblr, I can imagine if I was fourteen now being in high school and being on Tumblr all the time in class - that must be such an annoying thing for teachers to have to deal with!” IfsI CanSchoolDealsClassGrowing UpTeacherGrowingImagineHigh SchoolAnnoyingFourteenAnnoying Things Author:Lizzy Plapinger
“After Bottle Rocket, I started getting acting work. People started offering me roles in movies. It wasn't something that I thought about as a kid growing up in Texas. Actually, maybe I would have thought of it as a possibility, but it seemed so crazily far-fetched to think that you could work in movies that I really didn't ever quite imagine it. It was just lucky.” PeopleThinkingKidsActingRolesGrowing UpGrowingImaginePossibilityLuckyBottlesTexasOfferingRocketsKids Growing UpBottle Rocket Author:Owen Wilson
“My Mom played violin and piano when she was growing up and she insisted, and I don't know if you can imagine how uncool it is to play the violin when you're eight and ten years old, but I told my Mom that I would quit every day until I went to high school and I met these other gentlemen who would become Yellowcard, and my friends, and I really fell in love with music and it wasn't just classical music, just submerged in the arts in the school I was in.” IfsKnowsYearsArtPlaySchoolGrowing UpGrowingImagineMomMetsTenHigh SchoolMy FriendsMy MomEightQuittingPianoGentlemanClassical MusicViolinSubmergedUncool Author:Sean Mackin
“When you mention to people growing up in Cleveland they bring up the river catching on fire, or LeBron James leaving, they have these references, but no one imagines ending up there.” PeopleGrowing UpFireGrowingImagineRiversLeavingCatchingClevelandCatching On Author:Celeste Ng
“I can imagine that if you're a kid growing up somewhere, where you might be gay or you think you're gay, but you don't know who else would be ... you become very closeted.” IfsThinkingKnowsI CanMightWould BeKidsGrowing UpGrowingImagineGayBe YouImagine ThatKids Growing Up Author:Rib Hillis
“I'm definitely a perfectionist. I started entertaining so young. I think naturally my personality is that of a perfectionist, and then on top of that, growing up in the industry I became very objective and analytical of myself early on and I find myself doing that in everything. It works good in my work, but sometimes it can be annoying, I imagine, to people in my life.” PeopleThinkingSometimesYoungGrowing UpGrowingImaginePersonalityIndustryObjectivesAnnoyingEntertainingPerfectionist Author:Keke Palmer