Quotes about Adulthood

When you get older, you have to wrestle with what's appropriate behavior a little bit more. Am I not acting too old or too young?

We want a rite of passage. We want to grow up.

The Bible warns [parents] against extremes in dealing with our adult children. It tells us to avoid trying to control [them] once they become adults. When children become independent, a major transition takes place: They are no longer under our authority.

Before the seventeenth century, a child passed directly into the adult world between the ages of five and seven . . . then came the industrial revolution . . .so the child-centered home was born.

In earlier periods of history, adolescence was virtually unknown... Today, the span between childhood and adulthood may extend over ten years. Deferred adulthood is synonymous with deferred responsibility.

I still have deep respect for the evangelical tradition and feel, in many ways, close to the Baptist roots of my childhood, although I've been an Episcopalian throughout my adult life and a regular churchgoer.

Self-control is one mark of a mature person; it applies to control of language, physical treatment of others, and the appetites of the body.

I was smarter when I was 15, 16 than when I was 18 to 26, because instead of caving in to being cool, I stuck close to my convictions and I was rewarded.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

A few days later, however, he wrote in one of his memo books this, which he let me read, "Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.

But I won't bore you any longer on the subject of old men. It won't make things any better and all my plans of revenge (such as disconnecting the lamp, shutting the door, hiding his clothes) must be abandoned in order to keep the peace. Oh, I'm becoming so sensible! ...

Things were different when I was growing up.