Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.

Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.

Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.

No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.

The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage. 

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

No one’s serious at seventeen.