Adulthood Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old adulthood quotes, adulthood sayings, and adulthood proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Adulthood is like the vet, and we're all the dogs that were excited for the car ride until we realized where we're going. Anonymous
Adulthood is not an age, but a stage of knowledge of self. John Fowles
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything. Kurt Vonnegut
For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be. John Connolly
Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them. Dr. Seuss
The tough thing about adulthood is it starts before you even know it starts. Robert Redford
Adulthood brings with it a pernicious illusion of control. Juan Gabriel
Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum. Thomas Szasz
Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary. Ernest Hemingway
Adulthood does not exist. Man is an eternal child. Nelson Rodrigues
Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others. Virginia Woolf
Adulthood was invented to repair the wounds of childhood. Joy Browne
Adulthood it a glacier encroaching quietly on youth. When it arrives, the stamp of childhood suddenly freezes, capturing us for good in the image of our last act, the pose we struck when the ice of age set in. Ian Caldwell
Adulthood is knowing that a fully realized character is always more important than the lines. Megan Crane
Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood. Louise J. Kaplan
People evolve and it's important to not stop evolving just because you've reached adulthood. J. K. Simmons
Adulthood has something to do with not choosing any of the pure points of view, but living about half of what you really want to live. Robert Bly
Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the street and then getting hit by an airplane. Anonymous
Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value. Albert Einstein
Once you've raised a child to adulthood, you can only be as demanding as your offspring allow. Mariella Frostrup
Part of adulthood is searching for the people who understand you. Hanya Yanagihara
People thought becoming an adult meant that all your acts had consequences; in fact it was just the opposite. Chad Harbach
The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence. Bruce Springsteen
Childhood and adulthood were not factors of age but states of mind. Alex Shakar
You're a grown-up, and you get to decide what behaviors affect you for five minutes versus what behaviors change you as a person. Kelly Williams Brown
Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it's teeming with energy and fraught with danger. Mary Pipher
With adulthood comes responsibility. Mary Lydon Simonsen
A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong. Thomas Szasz
The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence Bruce Springsteen
The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour. L.M. Montgomery
Adulthood can do the most horrific things to the best of people. Neal Shusterman
Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible. John D. MacDonald
We're all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children's game, we just don't know when that's gonna be. Some of us are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty, but we're all told. Scout Barry (Barry Moss)
Get old, you can't even cuss someone and have it bother 'em. Everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing. Elvis Presley
Your hair got whiter, your ears got bigger, your nose got longer, but you still retain that unique, elusive pain in the ass quality that drives me berserk. Oscar Madison
The memory of having been read to is a solace one carries through adulthood. It can wash over a multitude of parental sins. Kathleen Rockwell Lawrence
In the earlier periods of history. adolescence was virtually unknown...Today, the span between childhood and adulthood may extend over ten years. Deferred adulthood is synonymous with deferred responsibility. Billy Graham
Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. Margaret Atwood
If this was adulthood, the only improvement she could detect in her situation was that now she could eat dessert without eating her vegetables. Lisa Alther
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice— that is until we have stopped saying, 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.' George Harris
When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing. Tom Robbins
We live protracted adolescence. At some point, you must leave the party. Don Henley
Being a grown-up means assuming responsibility for yourself, for your children, and— here's the big curve— for your parents Wendy Wasserstein
Growing up has never been easy but / Being an adult it gets a whole lot worse / When you gotta make your holidays magical / You realize how life goes and takes a turn. Dimitri Dunn
I do not want into adulthood, I do not want / This is an eternal race with everyone mortgages / Loans, responsibility, no freedom, no lust / It's easier to be a child and cuz I don't want into adulthood / Really. Emil Bogatov
It’s so hard to provide that shade of omniscience / While helping you see that adulthood’s unscripted. Gavin Castleton
I don't want to live in adulthood / Raping all the years from my childhood / Riding on a mat down a staircase / Crashing into life like a new wave / Years were passing by as the time stood / Rolling in the filth used to feel good / The child in me is hanging by a thread of hope / Safer in the swing of a jump rope. John Edward Carey
I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry an accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. Maya Angelou
Being silly is still allowed, not excluded by adulthood. What's excluded by adulthood is thoughtlessness, so be thoughtful and silly. Hank Green
Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood. Rudyard Kipling
Children are the closest we have to wisdom, and they become adults the moment that final drop of everything mysterious is strained from them. Simon Van Booy
As human beings, we all mature physically from childhood to adolescence and then into adulthood, but our emotions lag behind. Bernard Sumner
You think that adulthood will hit and you'll suddenly be more capable. But that doesn't happen, ever, does it? Sally Hawkins
People evolve and it's important to not stop evolving just because you've reached 'adulthood.' J.K. Simmons
What was it about becoming an adult? The color drained from the days and life became a calendar. I floated in debris of plausible dates and implausible plans. Lara Prior-Palmer
One becomes an adult on the day one realizes that others don't have to share one's beliefs or concerns. Marty Rubin
Somehow her later years had become a mirror of her lonely childhood. Amanda Eyre Ward
But in the bleak light of full adulthood, which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night, he can clearly see what it really amounts to he's broke and unemployed. Neal Stephenson
For me, adulthood is realizing that there are no grown-ups and everyone else is winging it. Sarah Beeny
To be an adult is to be alone. Jean Rostand
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown-up. C.S. Lewis
Being an adult is the ability to postpone a want for the sake of a family need. Chris Hogan