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.
“Being honest would have a positive influence and my education and the will to learn. I think asking race, gender questions are negative because in some cases they can disqualify you. The honest truth is some people don’t want to hire certain races of people. Some people don’t want to hire certain religion, or gender of people. None of these can determine job performances.”
“Before I went to UMBC, I went to Bucknell and the reason I got accepted was that I was Black. So, I got the minority scholarship…So, they accepted five people from Baltimore to be like the minorities on campus…It sucked because they had us in a field picking crops…That’s why I hated that school. They were very racist. But it’s not great…and then, I got in trouble because I didn’t want to do it…I was like you want me out there with a smile on my face picking crops for that white man over there? No.”
[At 45] “I want to have a family. I want to have one kid. I want to be my own boss like [she] said. I want to own a company. I want to be a beautician or something, like do hair and makeup. I don’t know how right now, but I want to have my own business by the time I am 45.”
“Stressful, tiring.”
“Maybe somebody going to tell you like you going, you doing it like that wasn’t a good decision, or like you going down the wrong path. Like suggest or like tell you like, you can’t do that. Like tell you I suggest you should do, yeah, you should do…something else.”
“Being an African American in America.”
“…and then, hopefully, I can start getting my name brand and everything start to go worldwide.”
[Description of “career”] “school, goals and hard work pays off. Something you always wanted to do…Goals because when you are little you look at things that you want to do, so you set goals for yourself. I remember at school they would make me put what you want to do, what goals do you want. I always picked the same field. To me that is something that I have always wanted to do.”
“I don’t really know [who would help me]; I don’t really know how they can make it easier on us.”
“You still have an objective to do with either one.”