Being a teenager is filled with ups, downs, and everything in between.
At Everyday Power, we have curated inspirational, relatable teen quotes to help you along the way.
What’s your favorite memory of being a teenager?
From school crushes to your first job, many memorable moments come with being a teenager.
At times, being a teenager can be emotionally taxing.
You may feel like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders.
Today, we’re reminding you that you’re not alone in your experiences.
Below, we have curated teen quotes from actors, singers, and philosophers about their teenage experiences, young love, and youth.
Teen quotes about being yourself
1. “With confidence, you have won before you have started.” – Marcus Garvey
2. “We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.” – Virginia Satir
3. “Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.” – Judy Garland
4. “Never dull your shine for somebody else.” – Tyra Banks
5. “Take care not to listen to anyone who tells you what you can and can’t be in life.” – Meg Medina
6. “Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood.” – Louise J. Kaplan
7. “Adolescence isn’t just about prom or wearing sparkly dresses.” – Jena Malone
8. “Youth comes but once in a lifetime.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
9. “Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.” – Carol Burnett
10. “I had teen angst for a while, but I think every teenager has the angst.” – Jamie Bell
11. “When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.” – Elon Musk
12. “Don’t compromise even if it hurts to be yourself.” – Toby Keith
Teen quotes about young love
13. “Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.” – Aristotle
14. “First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.” – George Bernard Shaw
15. “The greatest things in life always come with a chance of great loss.” – Luke Edison
16. “To be inspired is great, but to inspire is an honor.” – Stacey T. Hunt
17. “Be classy. Anything but trashy.” – Coco Chanel
18. “The youth need to be enabled to become job generators from job seekers.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
19. “Keep true to the dreams of your youth.” – Friedrich Schiller
20. “We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.” – Bryan White
21. “The little-unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person’s life.” – William Wordsworth
22. “I’m so in love, every time I look at you my soul gets dizzy.” – Jaesse Tyler
23. “The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.” – Benjamin Disraeli
24. “The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.” – Maya Angelou
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of Maya Angelou quotes celebrating success, love & life.
Teen quotes from celebrities
25. “Relationships take work. It isn’t true love if things go smoothly.” – S.R. Crawford
26. “It is better to love truly at seventeen than pretend at thirty.” – Rom Amor
27. “Well, I could do it for a day, but I wouldn’t want to be a teenager again. I really wouldn’t.” – Jamie Lee Curtis
28. “Don’t settle for being an option; become a priority.” – Matt Mitchell
29. “As long as I didn’t say it aloud, it wasn’t real.” – Sarah Dessen
30. “I liked being a teenager, but I would not go back for all the tea in China.” – Rob Lowe
31. “Being a teen can be tough. Just try to surround yourself with really good friends that really have your back, and also be a really good friend to those who really care about you. If you’re not sure about certain things, talk to your friends that you trust and your family.” – Victoria Justice
32. “When I look in the mirror I see the girl I was when I was growing up, with braces, crooked teeth, a baby face and a skinny body.” – Heather Locklear
33. “Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” – Bertrand Russell
34. “I think everybody’s weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.” – Johnny Depp
35. “There was so much pressure to fit in, I tried to force myself to be like everyone else. The last thing any teen wants is to be ‘uncool.’” – GRiZ
Teen quotes about youth
36. “Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day.” – John Wooden
37. “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” – Marilyn Monroe
38. “Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.” – Virginia Satir
39. “First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object clear of the every day, over the rut of living, making him all looks, silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context.” – Elizabeth Bowen
40. “Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.” – Samuel Ullman
41. “No other version, no matter how perfect it is, would ever feel better than being your true self.” – Edmond Mbiaka
42. “Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress, and the way to live.” – Gianni Versace
43. “As I’ve said many times, the single most oppressed class in America right now is the teenager.” – Joe Bob Briggs
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of teenager quotes about navigating this period of life.
44. “Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something harder to shock.” – Ben Lindsey
Powerful teen quotes to inspire you
45. “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
46. “The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” – Jalal ad-Din Rumi
47. “We’re a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness and call it love true love.” – Robert Fulghum
48. “Love is missing someone whenever you’re apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you’re close in heart.” – Kay Knudsen
49. “I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.” – Robert Cormier
50. “Children, even infants, are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.” – Louise J. Kaplan
More teen quotes and sayings
51. “I wanted to be his life preserver, the thing that would keep him afloat. Instead, he became my anchor. And I’m tired of drowning.” – Amanda Grace
52. “My teenage years were exactly what they were supposed to be. Everybody has their own path. It’s laid out for you. It’s just up to you to walk it.” – Justin Timberlake
53. “I spent the first fourteen years of my life convinced that my looks were hideous. Adolescence is painful for everyone, I know, but mine was plain weird.” – Uma Thurman
54. “You’re the queen of pushing people away before they can say they like you. The queen of rejecting first so you can’t be rejected.” – Maggie Ann Martin
55. “Once you were a winner, you had to stay the winner they expected you to be.” – Joelle Charbonneau
56. “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” – Nietzsche
57. “Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.” – Henry Ward Beecher
58. “Just thinking about you brings a smile to face, a twinkle to my eye, and a skipped beat to my heart.” – Ash Sweeney
59. “As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too.” – Johnny Depp
60. “Being a teenager is an amazing time and a hard time. It’s when you make your best friends – I have girls who will never leave my heart and I still talk to. You get the best and the worst as a teen. You have the best friendships and the worst heartbreaks.” – Sophia Bush
Teen quotes we can relate to
61. “And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations.
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.
Changes”
― David Bowie
62. “People say teenagers think they’re immortal, and I agree with that. But I think there’s a difference between thinking you’re immortal and knowing you can survive.” – Francesca Zappia
63. “Being classy is my teenage rebellion.” – Rebecca McKinsey
64. “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
65. “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.” – Stephanie Meyer
66. “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
67. “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
68.” Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength.” – Catherynne M. Valente
69. “Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana
70. “Family and friends and faith are the most important things in your life and you should be building friendships.”- Barbara Bush
Relatable teen quotes about high school
71. “High school is such a small part of your life. So why change your life for it? Who cares what people think of you.” – Unknown
72. “I think everyone feels lost at times during their high school years.” – Linda Cardellini
73. “Let’s face it. No kid in high school feels as though they fit in.” – Stephen King
74. “High school will always be a drama zone. It takes the strongest and smartest to know how to avoid it.” – Mia Lugo
75. “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 the future.” – Stephen King
76. “High school for me was not all that fun. I think it’s a lot more fun after when you realize that high school ends, and everything that’s important at that time is sort of not important if people don’t like your jeans or whatever. It doesn’t matter.” – Leighton Meester
77. “There’s a big world out there. Bigger than prom, bigger than high school, and it won’t matter if you were the prom queen or the quarterback of the football team or the biggest nerd.” – Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore)
78. “It is hard to convince a high school student that he will encounter a lot of problems more difficult than those of algebra and geometry.” – Edgar W. Howe
79. “High school wasn’t a trial by fire or some ordeal that had to be survived. It was all a big joke. You just had to provide the laugh track.” – Scott Westerfield
80. “Students get diplomas when they graduate from high school, but I think they should also get diplomas for simply surviving the teen years.” – Melanie Willard, Dare to be Raw
For more inspiration, also check out our collection of quotes for kids about success.
Teen quotes that are so true and relatable
81. “Don’t worry if people think you’re crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who they’re destined to be.” ― Jennifer Elisabeth
82. “Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.” ― J.B. Priestley
83. “Let your inner DORK shine through.” ― Rachel Renée Russell
84. “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
85. “I have this sense that I didn’t really start growing up until my twenties.” ― Winona Ryder
86. “So many people try to grow up too fast, and it’s not fun! You should stay a kid as long as possible!” ― Vanessa Hudgens
87. “I mean, I’m pretty good in real life, but sometimes people seem surprised that I’m like a normal teenager and wear black nail polish and I’m just a little bit more edgy than the person I play on television.” ― Brittany Snow
88. “Nobody understands anyone 18, including those who are 18.” ― Jim Bishop
89. “Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.” ― Anita Brookner
90. “I was a quiet teenager, introverted, full of angst.” ― Nigella Lawson
Teen quotes about being young and carefree
91. “When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you.” ― Gail Carson Levine
92. “One of the cruelties of teenage hood is that you’ll never know what your parents were really like at your age, and they’ll never accurately remember.” ― Una LaMarche
93. “Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.” ― Virginia Satir
94. “Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath.” ― Arnold H. Glasow
95. “All teenagers have this desire to somehow run away.” ― Joan Chen
96. “To an adolescent, there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent.” ― Dave Barry
97. “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
98. “At the age of 16 I was already dreaming of having a baby because I felt myself to be an adult, but my mum forbid it. Right now, I feel like a teenager and I want to have fun for one or two more years before starting a family.” ― Milla Jovovich
99. “I think you go through a period as a teenager of being quite cool and unaffected by things.” ― Miranda Otto
100. “I got through my teen years by being a bit of a clown.” ― Diane Cilento
Teen Quotes To Establish A Good Union
101. “When it comes to their behavior, teenagers will most likely be more influenced by their friends more than anybody else.” — Mary Appleton
102. “It may seem like common sense but remember with the naive teens anything may happen so don’t wait for it to happen instead communicate early to ensure their safety.” — Ellen Trump
103. “When we regard teens with a positive, optimistic attitude, they give us their best.” — Lucie Hemmen
104. “Teaching is a skill that is unique. Teachers play an important role in our society, they influence our children, our teens, and ourselves.” — Catherine Pulsifer
105. “If you are a parent and you are asked to think about difficult people at home, you probably automatically think about your teenage kids.” — Malcom Rockwood
106. “Relationships mold us into who we are as children, teenagers, and adults. Each phase of life brings changes in the relationships of those around us.” — Cindy Hyde
107. “It’s not easy parenting a teen girl. It”s not easy being a teen girl either. You’re not alone if you find parenting your teenage daughter a challenge.” — Sarah Booker
108. “If every hour spent with your child makes them more confident and obedient in their teenage years, how many hours would you try to spend with them?” — V. Noot
109. “It is important to spend time with your teenager, and to show them that you are open to talk, to listen, and to work out things together.” — Mary Appleton
110. “Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own.” — Doug Larson
What’s your most embarrassing moment as a teenager?
Like many others, I had a hard time getting through middle school and high school.
I was bullied throughout multiple years of my life.
At 24, those experiences still affect my mental health.
I have so much respect for teenagers.
More often than not, being a teenager is difficult. It takes a strong person to keep moving forward.
One piece of advice I would give to teenagers is not to be afraid to step outside of their comfort zone.
Whether joining a new club at school or introducing yourself to a new person in math class, don’t be afraid to try new things.
Which of these teen quotes and sayings is your favorite?
Drop it in the comments section below!