101 Quotes For Teenagers

Navigating the teenage years can be an exhilarating yet challenging journey, filled with moments of self-discovery, growth, and transformation. As teens explore their identities and place in the world, inspiration can often be found in the words of those who've walked similar paths. To support and uplift this journey, we’ve curated a collection of the top 101 quotes for teenagers. These quotes are more than just words; they are reflections of courage, resilience, wisdom, and hope, each with the potential to spark motivation and offer guidance. Whether you’re seeking encouragement during tough times or simply looking for a daily dose of positivity, these quotes can serve as a trusty companion along the way.

1. “When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.” - John Green

2. “Juno MacGuff: I don't know what kind of girl I am. ” - Diablo Cody

3. “The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.” - Quentin Crisp

4. “If you surround yourself with the good and righteous, they can only raise you up. If you surround yourself with the others, they will drag you down into the doldrums of mediocrity, and they will keep you there, but only as long as you permit it.” - Mark Glamack

5. “As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.” - Fran Lebowitz

6. “Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.” - Erma Bombeck

7. “I am charging you with the protection of my mother and friends, not to mention keeping my younger self off the Internet. He is as dangerous as Opal.” - Eoin Colfer

8. “you have to be the prude or the slut, and if you pick one, other people hate you for it, and you can’t trust anyone anymore, because they’re all after the same thing, and you see that you can never go back to how was before…” - Ned Vizzini

9. “The young of the town, preoccupied with their own germinating angst, which each possessed in varying degree (though few were ever fully aware of its existence), felt no particular connection to the land, its people, its structures, or its history. As such, they had no inclination to defend its invisible borders from declared enemies within or without. They desired only escape from this small village, which each viewed as an existential prison built upon the antiquated expectations of their parents and their parents’ parents. And because of their invisible bondage, the young of this town were possessed by a quiet rage. But this rage laid torpid and inert within them, dulled to sleep by the tired repetition of nothing happening over and over and over again, day after day after day.This is the story of one of those young people, and the terrible things that happened to her, and the terrible things she did as a result.” - P.S. Baber

10. “No. Absolutely not. I forbid it. You'll have nightmares." "She was my friend! You must allow me. Why are you so horrid?" As soon as the angry words were out of my mouth, I knew I had gone too far. "Matilda!" Mother rose from her chair. "You are forbidden to pseak to me in that tone! Apologize at once.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

11. “I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"]” - William Matthews

12. “It you taste nice I may bite!” - Amy Mah

13. “Yes you can let a guy bite you but not on the first date! he has to pay for dinner ! But you can bite him on the first date at no cost that is quite normal” - Amy Mah

14. “Patrick Kenzie asking a bemused waitress for a newspaper in smalltown USA. 'It’s like a homepage without a scroll button?” - Dennis Lehane

15. “Amy! Sit correctly, you are wearing a dress...feet on the floor and your knees together girl...You are trying to catch a husband, not flies !” - Amy Mah

16. “...Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you're a teenager—and even when you're older—lots of people will try to tell you what to think and feel. Try to stand still inside all of that and hear your own voice. It's yours and only yours, it's unique and worth of your attention, and if you cultivate it properly, it might just make you a writer.” - Jennifer Donnelly

17. “Why do you think, A.J.," they say in unison, "that you find these boys so attractive?" I didn't say that this fiery chemical explosion leaps from somewhere inside me. Parents don't want to hear these things. I shrugged and said nothing. "Maybe you should try sitting on the intensity," Mom suggests, "just until your feelings catch up with reality.""We could chain you to the water heater," Dad offers, "until these little moments pass."You see what I'm up against.” - Joan Bauer

18. “Rock'n'roll is a teenage sport, meant to be played by teenagers of all ages--they could be 15, 25 or 35. It all boils down to whether they've got the love in their hearts, that beautiful teenage spirit... -Calvin Johnson” - Michael Azerrad

19. “You know, small children take it as a matter of course that things will change every day and grown-ups understand that things change sooner or later and their job is to keep them from changing as long as possible. It’s only kids in high school who are convinced they’re never going to change. There’s always going to be a pep rally and there’s always going to be a spectator bus, somewhere out there in their future.” - Stephen King

20. “The boys and girls in the clique. The awful names that they stick. You're never gonna fit in much kid, but it you're troubled and hurt, what you've got under your shirt will make them pay for the things that they did!” - Gerard Way

21. “Post-adolescent Expert SyndromeThe tendency of young people around the age of eighteen, males especially, to become altruistic experts on everything, a state of mind required by nature to ensure warriors who are willing to die with pleasure on the battlefield. Also the reason why religions recruit kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers almost exclusively from the 18-21 range. "Kyle, I never would have guessed that when you were up in your bedroom playing World of Warcraft all through your teens, you were, in fact, becoming an expert on the films of Jean-Luc Godard.” - Douglas Coupland

22. “Justin, honey, you were my very first kiss. My very first hand to hold. But you were nothing more than an average guy. And I don't say that to be mean- I don't. There was just something about you that made me need to be your girlfriend to this day I don't know exactly what that was. But it was there.. and it was amazingly strong. -Thirteen Reasons Why” - Jay Asher

23. “He felt a little lost, after that experience. Lost as the girls on their knees. It was a never-ending story of young girls losing themselves, such that they were no longer humans with any souls or characters, but pretty girls with fat asses and nice tits.” - Jess C. Scott

24. “when she removed my hand from her chest for the one hundred thousandth time. Attack and defense, invasion and repulsion... it was as if breasts were little pieces of property that had been unlawfully annexed by the opposite sex - they were rightfully ours and we wanted them back.” - Nick Hornby

25. “What was in it for me? I wasn't asking for any sort of reciprocation, after all. Why didn't she want her erogenous zones stimulated? I have no idea. All I know is that you could, if you wanted to, find the answers to all sorts of difficult questions buried in that terrible war-torn interregnum between the first pubic hair and the first soiled Trojan.” - Nick Hornby

26. “The confusing lesson whipped Frankie's anger into something she had never felt before. It was like an emotional meringue - the airy feeling of loneliness topped with the hard crisp of injustice. Yet its taste was far from sweet.” - Lisi Harrison

27. “If I were to draw on a paper what gym does for me, I would make one dot and then I would erase it.” - Elizabeth Berg

28. “I would make an anonymous call and say, this is someone who cares, do you know what kind of children you have?” - Elizabeth Berg

29. “I think being a teenager is such a compelling time period in your life--it gives you some of your worst scars and some of your most exhilarating moments. It's a fascinating place; old enough to feel truly adult, old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of your life, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young (in most cases) to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval.” - Stephenie Meyer

30. “Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.” - J.B. Priestley

31. “I raised my three teens with love, perseverance, tenacity, sweat, tears, prayers, lighting candles, and the list could go on.” - Ana Monnar

32. “Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.” - Anne Lamott

33. “Some are young people who don't know who they are, what they can be or even want to be. They are afraid, but they don't know of what. They are angry, but they don't know at whom. They are rejected and they don't know why. All they want is to be somebody. ” - Thomas S. Monson

34. “I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with a S maybe, S for silent, S for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

35. “Before she closed the door, she hit me with this one: "I feel like it's November first," she said, "and I'm that discarded jack-o'-lantern whose heart and guts are splattered all over the boulevard of broken promises.""And a good night to you, too," I said.” - Rick Detorie

36. “It’s easier for me to make sense of it that way than it is for me to face the other way—reality. And yet, those evil spirits that were unleashed—be they fake entities from a stupid carnival ride, or cruel malevolencies from dark spiritual chasms of our universe—have stayed with me all these years” - Tim Cummings

37. “Listen, we’ll come visit you. Okay? I’ll dress up as William Shakespeare, Lucent as Emily Dickinson, and beautiful ‘Ray’ as someone dashing and manly like Jules Verne or Ernest Hemingway...and we’ll write on your white-room walls. We’ll write you out of your supposed insanity. I love you, Micky Affias.-James (from "Descendants of the Eminent")” - Tim Cummings

38. “Okay, then, what was he like? Just give me something to go on so that I have a shot at him!''A shot at him? Are you on an elk hunt?” - Sara Zarr

39. “Katy skipped over, her low-rise jeans threatening to fall off her skinny hips. With some girls, that was a sexy look. With Katy, it made you nervous.” - Sara Zarr

40. “My work with teenagers has convinced me that one of the main reasons teenagers are not excited by the gospel is that they do not think they need it. Many parents have successfully raised self-righteous little Pharisees. When they look at themselves, they do not see a sinner in desperate need, so they are not grateful for a Savior. Sadly, the same is true of many of their parents.” - Timothy Lane

41. “For the love of God, unless you’re prepping for Rigoletto at the Met, go easy on the eyeliner.” - Cheryl Cory

42. “The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way.” - Judith Martin

43. “She was young and alive, untouchable. Why did she want to go?” - Courtney Summers

44. “She had been a teenager once, and she knew that, despite the apparent contradictions, a person's teenage years lasted well into their fifties.” - Derek Landy

45. “Me: “I refuse to attend Support Group.”Mom: “One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities.”Me: “Please just let me watch America’s Next Top Model. It’s an activity.”Mom: “Television is a passivity.”Me: “Ugh, Mom, please.”Mom: “Hazel, you’re a teenager. You’re not a little kid anymore. You need to make friends, get out of the house, and live your life.”Me: “If you want me to be a teenager, don’t send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot.”Mom: “You don’t take pot, for starters.”Me: “See, that’s the kind of thing I’d know if you got me a fake ID.”Mom: “You’re going to Support Group.”Me: “UGGGGGGGGGGGGG.”Mom: “Hazel, you deserve a life.” - John Green

46. “We leave such a trail of bodies through our teens and twenties that it's hard to tell which one is us. How many versions do we abandon over the years” - Dan Chaon

47. “All I really want to do today is go to the book store, drink coffee and read.” - Ann Marie Frohoff

48. “Why does she always seem to think you drive like we're holding up a bank?"Roswell grinned and rolled his eyes, "Because that's what teenagers do, right? They also carve swastikas into their arms, steal prescription drugs from old people, and freebase cocaine. I need to institute a policy where she stops watching 60 Minutes and pretty much all public service announcements.” - Brenna Yovanoff

49. “To now is to love, to see is a joy, but to lose is hurtful.” - Rubye Armorer

50. “Before you leave here, Sir, you’re going to learn that one of the most brutal things in the world is your average nineteen-year-old American boy.” - Philip Caputo

51. “Why hasn't someone lassoed a few teenagers and had them sit down and write out all the supposed answers they have so we can solve the world's problems already?” - Richelle E. Goodrich

52. “Too many adults wish to 'protect' teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.” - Margaret A. Edwards

53. “It was only high school after all, definitely one of the most bizarre periods in a person’s life. How anyone can come through that time well adjusted on any level is an absolute miracle.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

54. “[In reference to vaginas] Someone saying you're "too loose"? Maybe that person's previous experience has been with women who weren't aroused (which, in the case of young adults, ins't that unusual)...Since many people think that penetration is supposed to be painful at first, a lot of them don't know how to wait for full arousal or make penetration comfortable. So, if a partner is saying you're "too loose," either they're simply experiencing a relaxed, aroused partner for the first time, or they're blowing smoke - either because they think it's the thing to say, or they were expecting to feel trapped in a vise, which is not how penetration should feel for either partner.” - Heather Corinna

55. “I bet if you look at the average teenager and the average adult, the average teenager has read more books in the last year than the average adult. Now of course the adult would be all like, 'I'm busy, I got a job, I got stuff to do.' WHATEVER! READ! I mean, you're watching CSI: Miami. Why would you be watching CSI: Miami, when you could be READING CSI: Miami, the novelization?” - John Green

56. “I ignored him, concentrating on Lilith. "According to the stories, after you were expelled from Eden you went down into Hell, where you coupled with demons and gave birth to all the monsters that have plagued the world.""I was young," said Lilith. "You know how it is. We all do things we later regret, when we're being rebellious teenagers.” - Simon R. Green

57. “Experience: the vehicle of history. Teenagers: the driving force behind fatal accidents.” - Bauvard

58. “It is back to basics here,’ Jason said. ‘What women seek to find in a man is dictated by evolution and the role of the man as a hunter gatherer. Women want a bad boy who will treat them well but not so well that they will have nothing to bitch about to their female friends. Bitching about the male of the species is how females bond with each other…another one of evolutions little jokes.” - J.D. Gallagher

59. “Love, really? We're vampires, not teenagers. Lust is for the weak.” - Ashley Madau

60. “A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.” - Jessica Mitford

61. “It's easier to fake it. When you fake it for sixteen years, it becomes part of you, something you don't think about.” - Alex Flinn

62. “If you have never been saved,you need to stop right where you are and admit to God that you are a sinner in need of salvation. Then ask Him for the gift of eternal life that was made available to you when Christ took your punishment and died for your sins on the cross.Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” - Jerry L. Ross

63. “Love and romance are things worth waiting for.” - Cath Crowley

64. “In that second, I think about running through that door and going with him. But I know that it’s not the road I’m meant for.Because we’re both still incapable of love. We’re both not ready yet.And I know that I’ll miss him. And some nights, I’ll cry in my sleep.But for now, I’m okay. And that’s all that matters.The void in my heart has finally been filled.And as the train moves farther and farther from me on the platform, I can only smile.” - L. Jayne

65. “Not for the first time, I wonder what it would feel like that, to be so beautiful that you don't even realize people are watching you, to be so confident that you don't even have to worry about being nervous or feeling self-conscious. I've spent what seems like my whole life trying to pretend I'm that way. What would it be like to have it just come naturally?” - Lauren Barnholdt

66. “He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [...], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.” - David Baldacci

67. “This is the thing about school dances. They make like it's supposed to be this other-worldly thing, but really it's just the people you see every day dressed up, standing in the gym in the dark with Red Hot Chili Peppers playing.” - Mariko Tamaki

68. “It takes a good habit to replace a bad habit.” - Melody Carlson

69. “Shut off the internal bashing.” - Melody Carlson

70. “...real teenage boys aren't like characters in the books you read. They smell funny and are obsessed with video games and say dumb things. They're still learning, just like you.” - Stacey Jay

71. “I am hell with a knife and there is nothing I can really do about it but try and keep my mouth shut and try not to let it show.” - Lynda Barry

72. “I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes.” - Joyce Carol Oates

73. “teenagers are never joking. when seeking to prove a point, principals and teachers should remember that teenagers are never, ever sarcasic or ironic. if they say "I wish someone would drop a bomb on this school right now," that means they have arranged for a nuclear arsenal to be emptied onto the school and should be immediately suspended and ridiculed. if they say they were merely coming up with a joking excuse to postpone a bio test, reply that all jokes are funny, and that since dropping a bomb on a school is not funny, it is therefore not a joke.” - David Levithan

74. “God, don't they teach you how to spell these days?""No," I answer. "They teach us to use spell-check.” - Jodi Picoult

75. “...but maybe it's just the genetic code of a teenager. If your parents forbid something, you have to want it.” - Brynna Gabrielson

76. “As a teenager, I didn’t want to be me; I wanted to be many different people. Maybe I realized that they all lived inside me and that if I managed to connect with them, they would become aspects of me.” - Marion Cotillard

77. “Jordana is in the umpire's highchair.I walk under the rugby posts and on to the tennis courts, stopping a few metres in front of her, in the service box.Her legs are crossed.I wait for her to speak.'I have two special skills,' she says.She pulls a sheaf of papers from under her bum. I recognize the font and the text boxes. It's my pamphlet.'Blackmail,' she says.She holds up her Zippo in the other hand. I can tell that she has been practising this.'And pyromania.'I am impressed that Jordana knows this word.'Right,' I say.'I'm going to blackmail you, Ol.'I feel powerless. She is in a throne.'Okay,' I say.” - Joe Dunthorne

78. “For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither do they know reason or restraint, and if you want to know the truth, a goodly number of grown-up hearts never learn it.” - Catherynne M. Valente

79. “I’m always the one who doesn’t have a date, the one guys walk up to and say, “So, is your friend, you know, with someone?” and I may not be the only girl without someone, but it feels like it sometimes. A lot of the time.” - Elizabeth Scott

80. “And you… do you know what you are?”“Stupid?”“Beautiful,” he says, his face turning red.” - Elizabeth Scott

81. “I don’t think I could have picked a worse guy to be my soul mate.” - Elizabeth Scott

82. “I thought you were going to— you’re standing under my window. Aren’t you supposed to climb up here or something?”“My ladder’s at home.” - Elizabeth Scott

83. “I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t think he’d ever really notice me, and in the end, he didn’t.” - Elizabeth Scott

84. “When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the sinless, pure, and average of the faux idyllic.” - Scott Thompson

85. “Storming was one of her main modes of transportation." In reference to teenager Heather in "Carry The One” - Carol Anshaw

86. “I've been asking around to find out what girls are into," Eugene tells me, really pleased with himself. "So I'm gonna get a spray tan and make red-velvet cupcakes.” - Flynn Meaney

87. “Let me give you some advice here: People who want to have the sex talk with you will act the same way as people who want to murder you. First they get you in their car, so they're in control and you can't escape. Then they drive you someplace in the middle of nowhere.” - Flynn Meaney

88. “So that's how we end up helping Aviva pick out a male escort. Even Darcy is impressed with Eugene's organization; each profile in the boy binder has two pictures, a head shot and a full-body shot, and lists essential information: age, school, height, weight, extracurriculars, hobbies, and dance ability (which ranges from "occasional Dance Dance Revolution participation" to "so good he could back up the Biebs").” - Flynn Meaney

89. “I could kiss that girl. And ya know what? I will kiss that girl. As soon as I get back to school, I'm gonna grab her, and I'm gonna kiss her.” - Flynn Meaney

90. “The beginning of wisdom, as they say. When you're seventeen you know everything. When you're twenty-seven if you still know everything you're still seventeen.” - Ray Bradbury

91. “Why can't a girl just want to know stuff and not do stuff?” - Ellen Mulholland

92. “The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.” - Criss Jami

93. “For in today’s generation of teenagers finding acceptance is hard, especially for those who dare to be different-then it’s impossible.” - Rebecah McManus

94. “So how did you get this job, anyway?' I asked.'My science teacher.''Why'd he pick you?''For my brains and good looks, obviously.''Yeah, right. My social studies teacher picked me, but I can't really figure out why."'For your brains and good looks, obviously.''Um, thanks.' Had Aaron just complimented me? Wow.” - Polly Shulman

95. “This whole time, I wasn't waiting for something in particular. Just someone who wanted me.Not sex.But me.” - Diana Peterfreund

96. “Kids are more advanced these days. The teenage years now start at 11.” - Michael Crichton

97. “Vomit began to spill out of me like pea soup, splattering the road with champagne and caviar, long island iced teas, of bacon appetizers and croissants, and a perfectly grilled filet mignonette. It had gone down easy, among the kiss ups of the lawyer world, but spewed out nastily and hard, in the company of a cheater.” - Keira D. Skye

98. “Don't be so quick to count out the teenagers. Some of the world's greatest changes, brilliant poetry, and innovations have come from the teenage mind.” - Steve Maraboli

99. “I say haven’t we had enough of just tossing our children in jail? Make them do community service, I say!” - Jacquel Chrissy May

100. “Most parents try really hard to give their kids the best possible life. They give them the best food and clothes they can afford, take their own kind of take on training kids to be honest and polite. But what they don't realize is no matter how much they try, their kids will get out there. Out to this complicated little world. If they are lucky they will survive, through backstabbers, broken hearts, failures and all the kinds of invisible insane pressures out there. But most kids get lost in them. They will get caught up in all kinds of bubbles. Trouble bubbles. Bubbles that continuously tell them that they are not good enough. Bubbles that get them carried away with what they think is love, give them broken hearts. Bubbles that will blur the rest of the world to them, make them feel like that is it, that they've reached the end. Sometimes, even the really smart kids, make stupid decisions. They lose control. Parents need to realize that the world is getting complicated every second of every day. With new problems, new diseases, new habits. They have to realize the vast probability of their kids being victims of this age, this complicated era. Your kids could be exposed to problems that no kind of therapy can help. Your kids could be brainwashed by themselves to believe in insane theories that drive them crazy. Most kids will go through this stage. The lucky ones will understand. They will grow out of them. The unlucky ones will live in these problems. Grow in them and never move forward. They will cut themselves, overdose on drugs, take up excessive drinking and smoking, for the slightest problems in their lives. You can't blame these kids for not being thankful or satisfied with what they have. Their mentality eludes them from the reality.” - Thisuri Wanniarachchi

101. “Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief. I think she'll wake when she tires of it. A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.” - Arthur Miller