#adulthood

A person can have a happy and fulfilling life without children. ↗

— Judy Blume

#children #life

Bloom of adulthood. Try a whiff of that. On your back in the dark you remember. Ah you remember. Cloudless May day. She joins you in the little summerhouse. Entirely of logs. Both larch and fir. Six feet across. Eight from floor to vertex. Area twenty-four square feet to the furthest decimal. Two small multicoloured lights vis-a-vis. Small stained diamond panes. Under each a ledge. There on summer Sundays after his midday meal your father loved to retreat with Punch and a cushion. The waist of his trousers unbuttoned he sat on the one ledge and turned the pages. You on the other your feet dangling. When he chuckled you tried to chuckle too. When his chuckle died yours too. That you should try to imitate his chuckle pleased and amused him greatly and sometimes he would chuckle for no other reason than to hear you try to chuckle too. Sometimes you turn your head and look out through a rose-red pane. You press your little nose against the pane and all without is rosy. The years have flown and there at the same place as then you sit in the bloom of adulthood bathed in rainbow light gazing before you. She is late. ↗

— Samuel Beckett

#childhood #relentlessness #love

Oh, you mysterious girls, when you are fifty-two we shall find you out; you must come into the open then. If the mouth has fallen sourly yours the blame: all the meanness your youth concealed have been gathering in your face. But the pretty thoughts and sweet ways and dear, forgotten kindnesses linger there also, to bloom in your twilight like evening primroses. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#girls #youth

For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be. ↗

— John Connolly

#childhood #child

When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you ↗

— Gail Carson Levine

#bridge #childhood #childhood

The management of fertility is one of the most important functions of adulthood. ↗

— Germaine Greer

#fertility #functions #important #management #most

It is widely known that the effects of childhood poverty follow children through adolescence and into adulthood. ↗

— Chris Van Hollen

#adulthood #childhood #children #effects #follow

How can it be, after all this concentrated effort and separation, how can it be that I still resemble, so very closely, my own detestable mother? ↗

— Gabrielle Hamilton

#becoming-your-parents #family #growing-up #humor #parents

We're romantic. We're hopeful. We're done for. The worst part of this all? The idea of struggle and compromise seems exciting to us-that's how stupid we are. There's no stopping fools, I say. We're still kids at heart. Those dreams are still there. Now we just have to go chase them. ↗

— Alida Nugent

#dreams #dreams

Would it be possible for me to see something from up there?" asked Milo politely. "You could," said Alec, "but only if you try very hard to look at things as an adult does." Milo tried as hard as he could, and, as he did, his feet floated slowly off the ground until he was standing in the air next to Alex Bings. He looked around very quickly and, an instant later, crashed back down to the earth again. "Interesting, wasn't it?" asked Alex. "Yes, it was," agreed Milo, rubbing his head and dusting himself off, "but I think I'll continue to see things as a child. It's not so far to fall. ↗

— Norton Juster

#childhood #perspective #childhood