“He was waving. Saukerl, she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that s as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.”
“The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.”
“I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn t know who I was or wanted to be.”
“If you re young and talented, it s like you have wings.”
“Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don t. They just want the fun of eating it all over again.”
“It s such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean, how do you know what you re going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it s a stupid question.”
“That’s the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.”
“Age isn t our final destiny, it s the youth we keep alive within.”
“Strange to be almost fifty, no? I feel like I just understood how to be young. Yes! It s like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won t ever be back.”
“Enjoy your youth. You ll never be younger than you are at this very moment.”
“For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
“It s the beautiful thing about youth. There s a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.”
“I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss”
“A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?”
“Wisdom When I have ceased to break my wings Against the faultiness of things, And learned that compromises wait Behind each hardly opened gate, When I can look Life in the eyes, Grown calm and very coldly wise, Life will have given me the Truth, And taken in exchange -- my youth.”
“It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.”
“Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born.”