Quotes About Maturity

Time was when I was immune to emotional shocks. But as I get older, I don't get tougher; I get softer.

One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.

I am not sentimental about kids. Little monsters, most of them, who don't civilize until they are grown and sometimes not then.

There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.

Sit back down—and for God's sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don't have my years of practice.

I wouldn't want Larry to die through my oversight. Larry is entitled to work out his own damn foolishness without having it cut short through my carelessness. Duke, I believe in everyone's working out his own damnation his own way . . . but nevertheless that is no excuse for an adult to give a dynamite cap to a baby as a toy.

If I've reached the place where I'm a good influence on anybody, it's time I cultivated some new vices.

J]uvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue--indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge and duty and embraces it more than the self-love he was born with.

adult delinquents—people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.

Once can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.

duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with.

For a young woman to cope with her mother-in-law's power system is to attain feminine maturity.

I'm sorry There are some jokes you cannot understand until you have been a fool many, many years and thought yourself finally cured and then found out that you had just become a different kind of fool.

I ain't know what it is to be a girl Mistress Grandsol. I pass straight from child to woman without even a pause for girl between. Girl is a privilege I never know.

Perhaps the one absolute essential to growing up well is being tough enough," Susan said. "Like us," I said.

Forty years old, and she called him boy: that's how she treated him, too, which made it worse. If only he didn't have to listen! But he did, he knew he had to, he always had to listen.

Why stay we on earth except to grow?

It was almost like there was something wicked about growing up.

Fifteen minutes later I parked behind Teri Haines's Saturn and went to the door. I kind of expected to find the house in smoking ruins, but I guess Charles had passed out from overeating. Lighten up, Cole. He's only a kid. Sure. They probably said that when Attila was a kid, too.

people over the years

Delayed parenting helps kids, because older parents are generally better equipped to support their kids, both materially and emotionally.

You rely on your speed too much. A young man's vanity. An old man learns to absorb pain and wait for an opportunity.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings.