Being Adults Quotes

#1. The root difficulty in all cases was the state of being blind and deaf to words
not seeing the words for the prose. Being adults, they had forgotten what every child understands, which is giving and taking a meaning is not automatic and inevitable

Jacques Barzun

#2. I think adults forget just how much faith teenagers can have in them, just how willing to believe that adults, by virtue of being adults, know absolute truths, or that absolute truths are even knowable.

Curtis Sittenfeld

#3. Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable of being adults.

Julian Barnes

#4. I love exploring the relationship between fathers and daughters. I think that's a special thing, especially with daughters who are dealing with being adults.

Tim Daly

#5. We're adults. We're the ones who should teach the kids what's good to eat. I don't think the government should ever regulate what we eat at home, but we're feeding them in school with tax dollars. Quite frankly, if my tax dollars are being spent to feed kids, I'd rather feed them better food.

Tom Colicchio

#6. Children's and YA books are about being brave and kind, about learning wisdom and love, about that journey into and through maturity that we all keep starting, and starting again, no matter how old we get. I think that's why so many adults read YA: we're never done coming of age.

Betsy Cornwell

#7. I think that it can be assumed that no adults are ever really 'shocked' - that being shocked is always a pose.

Thornton Wilder

#8. It was these secondary levels of life, these extrasensory flashes and floating nuances of being, these pockets of rapport forming unexpectedly, that made me believe we were a magic act, adults and children together, sharing unaccountable things

Don DeLillo

#9. While the Internet generally tends to have a stress-relieving function for adults - as long as they aren't inclined toward sex addiction - I don't see this being the case for adolescents.

Volkmar Sigusch

#10. I was learning the ways of the world; one of them being that the presence of a certain type of curly-haired man - your type - will cause you to fidget and fidget until the only way to reach some level of calm is to touch him. pg.38

Helen Oyeyemi

#11. Because of the consequences of trying to be heard as a child, many adults are unable to take the risk of telling as adults. The fear of the consequences is almost debilitating. The abusers and controllers know that; they rely on it.

Darlene Ouimet

#12. Smoking is, as far as I'm concerned, the entire point of being an adult.

Fran Lebowitz

#13. The worst thing about being the laureate has been the attitude of a tiny minority of adults who haven't liked some of the things I'm supposed to have said and who have used it as an opportunity to be verbally abusive and nasty, but I haven't let it rule my world!

Malorie Blackman

#14. Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents?"
Steppa laughs. "Folks with other things to do?"
"Like what things?"
"Jobs, I guess. Friends. Trips. Hobbies.

Emma Donoghue

#15. That partially due to the world of media and commerce, the idea of a comic book has been lost in the ghetto, whereas the graphic novel is now being held up as something to aspire to and as something that's respectable for adults to read.

Adrian Tomine

#16. I needed to grow up and do things all adults do. It was time to stop having everything spoon fed to me. It was about being independent.

Paula Creamer

#17. What's it like being a writer? Mostly it's like being a child surrounded by adults. My friends have grown-up careers. They balance spreadsheets, analyze data, negotiate deals. They build things, heal patients, teach children. Meanwhile, I'm over here saying "Let's pretend.

Jennifer Froelich

#18. In many countries, schools are preparing students to participate in a democratic environment; yet schools themselves tend to be extremely autocratic, with all high-level decisions being made by adults.

Adora Svitak

#19. You're too sensitive' victims of sexual abuse are told over and over by those whose reality depends on being insensitive. Most adults who have been in the victim role cringe when anyone tells them they are sensitive. In fact, sensitivity is a lovely trait and one to be cherished in any human being.

Renee Fredrickson

#20. Children have an unerring instinct for knowing when they are being patronized. They go immediately on the defensive against head-patting adults who treat them like strange beings.

Art Linkletter

#21. You are allowed to draw lines even if your feelings are irrational. Part of the marvelous business of being an adult human is that you get to set your own boundaries for whatever reasons you like, without appending a sensible rationale to them.

Mallory Ortberg

#22. Sometimes adults seem as though they have cut a chord from being a child.

Roddy Doyle

#23. And then I know I'm being a man, not just some kid who's upset and wants it his way.

Angela Johnson

#24. I don't like being with grown-up people. I've known that a long time. I don't like it because I don't know how to get on with them.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#25. Nothing is creepier than a bunch of adults being very quiet.

Tina Fey

#26. The only obvious advantage to being an adult is that you can eat your dessert without haying sampled the vegetables.

Lisa Alther

#27. In my generation, we learned how to be leaders by being exposed to and involved with adults who empowered us and gave us a sense that we could choose things. We've let down the generations coming behind us and we are trying to re- establish that connection.

Marian Wright Edelman

#28. dignity was simply that they'd had to manage on their own when they grew up, and therefore saw it as their right not to become reliant on others when they were adults. There was a sense of pride in having control. In being right.

Fredrik Backman

#29. He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years.

Cory Doctorow

#30. I'm not used to be the adult. I'm not very good at being the adult. To some regard, I wanted to just hang out and joke around, like I would normally, but I had to try to find the movie to shoot.

Jamie Linden

#31. I was happy but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you.

Jeanette Winterson

#32. Children, I always think, are just putting on a performance of being naive and not understanding anything. I have worked with children in films, and they're treated as adults and they just drop the pretense of being children.

Wallace Shawn

#33. Everyone has to learn to work with people - it's part of being an adult, too.

Steve Grand

#34. I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.

Lois Lowry

#35. Many of us go from being taken care of as children to taking care of others as adults. Shouldn't there be a time when we learn to take care of ourselves?

Bill Crawford

#36. I love superheroes and I love weird horror films ... I could definitely feel that there was a lack of movies like The Martian being made: smart genre movies that can appeal to adults.

Drew Goddard

#37. A quiet mind is one that is willing to speak the truth that is felt internally. It is a mind that has not yet been conditioned to accept a reality that is being imposed upon it by well-meaning adults and cultural and religious teachings.

Wayne Dyer

#38. When you're a kid going on being an adult, everything radiates so deeply and resonates so passionately, and I like the opportunity to tell those stories.

Joseph McGinty Nichol

#39. We're all being segregated or sent to our different rooms to watch television that's geared only for adults, to be honest. There's very little fare - outside of cartoons and a few things for children (and) I guess (some reality shows like) The Voice - that can be watched by the entire family.

Michael Landon Jr.

#40. I used to think that what scared me was the idea of being abandoned until someone said to me, 'Only children can be abandoned. Adults can't be abandoned because we have a choice. Children don't have a choice.'

Demi Moore

#41. Only adults are so messed up that they rationalize the need to have a reason for being happy,

Cameron Jace

#42. Part of the satisfaction of tattling surely comes from showing oneself to adults as a good moral agent, a responsible being who is sensitive to right and wrong. But I would bet that children would tattle even if they could do so only anonymously. They would do it just to have justice done.

Paul Bloom

#43. The drive of the story is sort of hinted at the beginning, is Joy and Sadness and those two characters. Especially Joy starting to understand that there's more to life than being happy. And so that's based on real life observations and things that we've learned as adults.

Pete Docter

#44. Many neglected and abused children grow up to be adults who are afraid to take risks of striking out on their own. Many will remain dependent on their abusive parents and unable to separate from them. Others leave their abusive parents only to attach themselves to a partner who is controlling.

Beverly Engel

#45. I don't care if you call it AO for Adults Only, or Chopped Liver or Father Goose. Your movie will still have the stigma of being in a category that's going to be inhabited by the very worst of pictures.

Jack Valenti

#46. turned out that the only difference between children and adults was that children were prepared to put twice the energy into the project of not being sad.

Chris Cleave

#47. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not.

Jeanette Winterson

#48. The adult relation to books is one of absorbing rather than being absorbed.

Anthony Burgess

#49. Evolution has led to some populations of people being able to digest milk without much trouble when they're adults as well.

Carl Zimmer

#50. We've got to stop being the stupid party ... It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults.

Bobby Jindal

#51. How ugly adults could be, how weak. So used to getting what they wanted that they didn't know the first thing about being brave.

Kate Morton

#52. Strong families serve society by bringing forth healthy children and maturing young adults, by being a rich source of a compassion for sick members, of support for others in time of crisis and of care for the elderly and the dying.

Vincent Nichols

#53. It is hard to conceive of any relationship between two adults in America being less equal than that of prisoner and prison guard.

Piper Kerman

#54. Immature people want quick fixes; they are the all or nothing thinkers. Evolving adults know that lasting change means being committed to the small daily steps over the long-term, deliberate journey.

Shannon Tanner

#55. Appropriate boundaries don't control, attack or hurt anyone. They simply prevent your treasures from being taken at the wrong time. Saying no to adults, who are responsible for getting their own needs met, may cause some discomfort. But it doesn't cause injury.

Henry Cloud

#56. Remember what being an adult is: It has nothing to do with money or awards

Frank Abagnale

#57. I think kids in general are much more capable of understanding the idea of being transgender than adults.

Jill Soloway

#58. You're working with adults and you're being paid to do a job. And you're a kid. Then you go back to high school, and everybody's partying, and they're doing math. I always felt a little bit outside of it. Outside of both experiences, really.

Tatiana Maslany

#59. To me, still being considered a kid, it can't be too much to ask. We should have the same rights as adults did when they were young.

Richard Louv

#60. Every adult should be an expert on teenagers, after spending life's seven longest years being one.

Cullen Hightower

#61. I don't need to prove I'm an adult by being ultra-sexy that's immature

Aly Michalka

#62. They wonder what is wrong with our country, but isn't it fairly obvious that if children are being treated like animals instead of rational beings, as adults they'll respond like monkeys?

Wen Spencer

#63. If cynicism is inevitable as one ages, so is the yearning for innocence. To children heaven is being an adult, and to adults heaven is being children again.

Diane Ackerman

#64. Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he is supposed to do.' ... 'Small children know,' Leto said. 'It's only after adults have confused them that children hide this knowledge even from themselves.

Frank Herbert

#65. The life I chose when I promised my six-year-old self never to forget being a child, never to grow frightened and dishonest like the grownups I saw, nodding politely to each other without affection, and decided to put my true self in a time capsule for later use.

Aurora Levins Morales

#66. Somewhere around the turn of the century, it stopped being hip to say you never watched TV. Adults are much more likely to find something to engage them on television than they are at the local multiplex. Edges are being cut on television all the time, but at the movies only now and then.

Tom Shales

#67. Some children naturally have more cognitive control than others, and in all kids this essential skill is being compromised by the usual suspects: smartphones, TV, etc. But there are many ways that adults can help kids learn better cognitive control.

Daniel Goleman

#68. For being a young guy, I'm articulate and can hold a decent conversation with somebody. But I've been able to do that since I was young. I don't think that has to do too much with schooling, it has more to do with the people I was raised around, my parents. I have respect for adults.

Larry Fitzgerald

#69. I remember as a kid being scared of the things that go bump in the night, but I was way more scared of adults.

Alex Hirsch

#70. I think young adults get a bad rap for being self-absorbed and self-centered. My experience going around the United States and speaking in schools is that teenagers here are very interested in the fate of their peers around the world.

Patricia McCormick

#71. I have known many people who were seduced as children by same-sex partners and then spent their teen years being gay, and then found their way back to heterosexuality as adults.

Nell Zink

#72. We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.

Fernando Pessoa

#73. Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.

Cornelia Funke

#74. 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.

Stefan Zweig

#75. Adults have been brainwashed into thinking that they can't really learn about computers without being taught, so it's more difficult for them to feel comfortable with a computer. Deep down, I think they're afraid of learning about computers.

Seymour Papert

#76. Are kids smarter than adults? All evidence points to that being true.

Natalie Jeremijenko

#77. Though we marry as adults, we don't marry adults. We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if we're creative.

Diane Ackerman

#78. Domestic violence does not only happen to adults. Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend, and approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and sexually abused by a dating partner.

Dianne Feinstein

#79. The point of an organi family is to release the children from the disadvantages of being extensions of their parents so that they can belong primarily to themselves. They may accept the services that adults perform for them naturally without establishing dependencies.

Germaine Greer

#80. It was like that for the first six months after 'E.T.' was in cinemas. I'd go out and get mobbed. I was a shy kid, and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out.

Henry Thomas

#81. Now it's fantastic, this is a medium that adults should be able to enjoy, it's not just for our kids. I feel like now with Adult Swim and all these different outlets for adults to enjoy animation, it's huge. I love being a part of it, absolutely love it.

Rachael MacFarlane

#82. Being able to elicit the feeling of the unfathomable in intelligent adults is like falling in love.

Drummond Money-Coutts

#83. As different as we are from one another, as unique as each one of us is, we are much more the same than we are different. That may be the most essential message of all, as we help our children grow toward being caring, compassionate, and charitable adults.

Fred Rogers

#84. Kids know when you're pulling a fast one, storywise, and I think that even when they're being entertained, children want to hear the truth, just like adults do.

Lisa Graff

#85. Nature gives children great emotional resilience to help them survive the oppressions of being small, but these oppressions still make them into slightly insane adults, either mad to seize all the power they once lacked or (more usually) mad to avoid it.

Alasdair Gray

#86. Being an adult is the ability to postpone a want for the sake of a family need.

Chris Hogan

#87. To the children who loved Harry Potter, I want to say your enthusiasm was the real magic. I so enjoyed being on the journey with you. And to the adults who bought the Harry Potter books and devoured them, I just want to say, those books were for children.

Daniel Radcliffe

#88. Adults tell students that it gets better, that the world changes after school, that being 'different' will pay off sometime after graduation. But no one explains to them why.

Alexandra Robbins

#89. Part of being an adult is treating women like women.

Jon Hamm

#90. One of the most poignant pieces of recent science fiction for me was the portrayal of the adults in the Pixar film WALL-E. I feel like we're on the cusp of becoming fat babies in floating chairs being fed everything in shake form, and I feel like I am as prone to laziness as anybody.

Nick Offerman

#91. Kids should feel afraid of 'Doctor Who.' All the adults I've talked to remember fondly being afraid when they were kids. That's part of the reason they remember it and love it. And if you're afraid in a controlled way, you sort of appreciate fear in some respect.

Matt Smith

#92. When the battle is over, the winners find it very hard not to pursue their violence. If you are strong enough to hold violence, you are strong enough to hold true to your pact. Then you have more moral fiber than most adults. Free will is one of the pillars of being human.

Alan McCluskey

#93. The ethical life ... is maintained in being by a common culture, which also upholds the togetherness of society ... Unlike the modern youth culture, a common culture sanctifies the adult state, to which it offers rites of passage.

Roger Scruton

#94. When children see Michael Jackson they see a human being. When adults see him they see money.

Phil Collins

#95. It's very different working with all adults. I have a swear jar so that, if they have a potty mouth, I make them pay. That's what it's like being on set with adults.

Joey King

#96. As a mentor and an advocate, I've seen no end to the ways that childless people can contribute to the lives and well-being of kids - and adults, for that matter.

Meghan Daum