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

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.

Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.

Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.

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.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

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

Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children. 

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