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 think there’s two types of motivation. There’s like positive and negative motivation where there’s someone supporting you, and then there’s someone who’s saying that you can’t do it, and it pushes you to try to prove them wrong pretty much. And then sometimes that motivation is stronger than, you know, people just being supportive.”
“I see myself as I make a [passive] income, so I don’t work much, hopefully. Traveling a lot, maybe married. I don’t see kids in my future, but that can always change at any time. I see a cleaner environment.”
“They want me to go into college because neither of them really went so they want me to be more than them and just get a better job.”
“Then my boyfriend money-wise he is very supporting. If you go back to school, don’t worry I will help you. I will do this and this. He is very supporting…Whatever I need to make myself happy, he is very like whatever. If that is your goal and that is what you want to do, whatever you need just let me know. Basically, with anything if you need somebody, we will hire somebody to help you. Don’t worry, I will do whatever it takes. I kind of have that trust that he will support me in the whole process.”
“[At age 45] a) San Francisco/Berkeley. b) I am a full-time author. c) God, family, kids, my writing/creative endeavors. d) My wife and kids, my Mom, Dad, and siblings. 2) It’s honestly a little scary to think about my future. Who will still be alive? What will I look like – will I even make it to 45?.”
“They say I am easy to talk to and argumentative.”
“My gender is male. My race is white. My religion is Catholic.”
“Negatives about job: you may have to do night shifts. Negatives about work: you’re working hard.”
“Social media. I heard the word net and I thought of fishermen.”
“I think that like now I’m kind of like thinking like when I see somebody in the street, like we’re all similar, but at the same time, we’re all different. Like I just noticed, we all have like a lot of similarities just in terms of our mindsets. But at the same time, like we have different lives, obviously. We have different circumstances, situations. So like that kind of it’s going to make me like think more…maybe [about] talking to more people because like maybe I grow by that because I grew from this conversation alone.”