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.
“A bunch of rich people at a mansion or a museum wearing really fancy things and kind of being sketchy and some people that aren’t really rich manipulate them and tell them if you do this for me, I will invest in your company and drinking champagne and really passive aggressive.”
“I wrote 9:00 to 5:00. I wrote modern-day slavery. I wrote waste of time and matrix…I just feel like, I don’t know. It’s this like that goes with the waste of time. I feel like, you know, we should, life is more about than your job, you going to work every day and, you know, working these 9:00 to 5:00 jobs. It’s just, I don’t know. It captivates people and like encloses people to just do and focus on that instead of bigger issues or bigger things for yourself. Like following your passions, what you’re passionate about; doing service and like for humanity, for other people, you know, volunteer work. Just, I don’t know, just doing simple things just sleeping in. And then, you know, just not being interrupted in your sleep. Being able to walk outside, go to the park, and just be in nature. Like little simple things. Matrix, you know the movie The Matrix? You ever watch it? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. I just feel like, I don’t know. It’s like jobs this is really not necessary to me at all. I just feel like whoever created it did it to really stifle people, and it’s still happening today.”
“A lot of times I just think parents just want us to do better than what they did.”
“Grown.”
“My second step is to take more clients…so I can almost replace the job I have right now. Then next step will be building streams of income from YouTube, videography and consulting. After that is build my personal brand so I can charge more money for less time because now the demand is bigger and in hard times outsource. After that it is just build because people have to make money.”
“My dad and my brother if I do a decision that they don’t like, I feel they will take [their financial support] away from me.”
“Then mentality and the drive – I am extremely socially anxious. I want to be able to get over that hump to really open up and get out of my shell and make that opportunity possible.”
“School is expensive…I just have to kind of get over it. I’m going to have student loans regardless. And I just have to maybe pick up more shifts and work harder and really save money and be good about spending.”
“I don’t think being white limits me at all.”
“I don’t know what religion I am.”