Welcome to the Striving to Thriving Youth Quote Library. Here you’ll find a curated collection of more than 5,700 quotes from young people ages 15-22 living in communities across the United States. In the library you can see how young people describe their multifaceted identities, how they understand and apply meaning to language around job, work and career, how they think about and assign value to relationships, networking and connections, and their future goals and the education and career choices they believe will lead them there. You can also view additional notes on curation, categories and filters.
“I put money because, I mean, I agree that there’s a lot of money out there and a lot jobs and stuff, but I feel like med school is extremely expensive. Like just getting a job at Burger King or something like that is not going to pay for med school.”
“So half of my family is Indian, so that’s really how we is. We enjoy ourselves while we’re doing it, because there’s some that…there’s some that do, but like when two childs get together, it’s a crazy…”
[At 70] “I am standing on a porch with my husband, and we are watching our children and grandkids.”
“I was at the Mall one time and this Black man kept looking at me like a crazy in a store and I asked, do you have a problem? He was like yeah your skin tone. I was ready to go off.”
“My high school days made me think that it helps me to choose the path what I wanted to do and what I want for my future. For me high school is the best experience…and helps me a lot to overcome everything. [What about your high school experience helped you overcome things?] My high school is one of the things that taught me to overcome and enjoy life and realize that life isn’t about happy things in life but obstacle down the road.”
“Money, motivation and support.”
“When you have a job I think you obviously learn to be responsible because you have to be somewhere at a certain time, be there for that many hours. You can’t just choose to get there whenever you want. You learn to be responsible when you have a job.”
“So, I mean, growing up with eight different siblings, you could see what the mistakes were. You could see how your parents were going to react to you and everything like that.”
“Self-motivated, driven, determined, hardworking, independent, friendly, social.”
“[At 45] I have traveled a little. I want to go to Asia. I don’t see myself having kids. I have never really thought about it, and I feel like with that kind of career and not really smart for kid I guess because you won’t be there for that kid so much. I never really thought about having kids. I am living probably in an apartment or a condo on the East Coast. I have a thing with the East Coast.”