"Adults are always telling young people, 'These..." - Quote by Erma Bombeck
Adults are always telling young people, 'These are the best years of your life.' Are they? I don't know. Sometimes when adults say this to children I look into their faces. They look like someone on the top seat of the Ferris wheel who has had too much cotton candy and barbecue. They'd like to get off and be sick but everyone keeps telling them what a good time they're having.
More by Erma Bombeck
More on Childhood
“The truth is that when one is still a child-or even if one is grown up- and has been well fed, and has slept long and softly and warm; when one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story, and has wakened to find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were; and one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one's eyes.”
“My family was so poor we were close to eating the holes inside of doughnuts.”
“When I was a teenager, I didn't get to do a lot of the things that other kids my age were doing because my dad was very controlling and he wouldn't allow me to go to school activities, like games and dances. So I didn't have positive expectations for my future or really dream about what I could do with my life. I was just trying to survive until I could get out on my own.”
More on Adulthood
“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
“Those who tread 'adult' as a term of approval cannot hope to be considered adult themselves. When I became a man I put away childish things, along with the desire to be very grown up.”
“...But we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown-up games are known as 'business' and even though boys' games are much the same, they are punished for them by their elders. No one pities either the boys or the men, though surely we deserve pity, for I cannot believe that a good judge would approve of the beatings I received as a boy on the ground that my games delayed my progress in studying subjects which would enable me to play a less creditable game later in life.”