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 learned do something that you like. If you are into cars or motorcycles or anything, do it if that is your passion because you are going to be doing it for a while. If you are going to do something at least enjoy it.”
“When someone tells me I have a bad temper when I am having a bad temper, it just makes my temper worse.”
“I want to be a police officer in a white community, just…What is in your car? Is that a gun?”
“For me, it is how do you leverage the networks you have established? So sometimes your network you have to have a specific connection with them so you know what you can ask them for and what you can’t; how you can use that to your advantage. Like you said, you want to interview Obama on how to be a politician. If I meet Obama, how am I going to leverage that network so that it will benefit me in my political career and stuff like that.”
“Low income.”
“I’m 45 and I’ve moved back to Louisiana. I’ve stopped streaming and posting on YouTube and Twitch. I finally got the new house I wanted. The old two story house was getting old and run down. Anyway, I got a fancy new Tesla car as well, real expensive it was. At least I still have my sister and friends. My mom’s still living, but my father kicked the bucket three years ago. I got married as well, and I retired after the war, in which I got drafted for. I live off the “war money” as my wife refers to it, which is my Veteran’s check. Those stupid Gen Omega kids, though, are a weird bunch. They just attempted to stuff a rag drenched in liquid iron in their mouths. What is important is the fact I have my loved ones around. Thinking about my future is kind of a grim though. Our neighbor, Kyle, is very nice and always reassures me that things will get better.”
“My grandfather did not go to college and he was happy about this decision [because] he joined the family business and has been relatively successful as he now co-owns the business with his brother…I’m not sure if [not going to college] has necessarily helped him with being successful but I don’t think it is necessary to go to college to be successful.”
“Knowing when to talk to people and who to talk to, I guess. Knowing if you can actually back up what you say you have, I guess. If you’re gonna talk to someone about getting a position with somebody knowing if you have the intellectual capital to – It’s back to that, I guess…Like knowing that it’s nice to have social capital, but it’s also nice to have other things to supplement that, I guess. Like you can’t just rely on knowing people. And you have to have skills of your own, so I get that.”
“People in my life that helped me get to where I am is three people in my family: my mom, she’s got a master’s degree so growing up around her I was able to like do more events, whether it is my grades or go and talk.”
“Your friends are actually going to want to see you succeed and want you to go far in life. Like [when] I was like in high school, I guess you can say I was one of like the popular kids because I knew everybody. Everyone at [High School]…like everyone knew who I was. And they knew who my family was. Like my family is big here in this town. So it’s like, I knew a lot of people. And then after high school, like everyone else, I just got in the way or didn’t really have an impact. Like they just split and left. Like the ones that I actually want to see me accomplish and know that I’m going to do good, they’re still there…they kept on pushing me. See like me, I’ve never smoked before in my life. I’ve never done any type of drugs, nothing. I didn’t drink until I think, no, the first time I had my first beer was 18, but I was in Mexico, and they gave it to me. Like they would never let me drink, smoke, do…like they would be like, no. You’re better than that. Like stick to school, sports, and that’s it. And then like stuff like that, they would never let me get in trouble. They wouldn’t really let me do bad stuff…They would just motivate me and just tell me like, you know, keep on going. You got this or don’t give up. Even now, they’ll check up on me and see if I’m still doing good on my goals and stuff. And I think I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to, you know, and just stuff like that like…”