70+ Teen Quotes To Help You Survive The Adolescent Years In Your Home

If you’ve got a teen, you know the deal — every day is a rollercoaster of emotions. And every day, you need to remind yourself that you, too, were once a teen just trying to figure out who you are in the great big world. Of course, teens today seem to speak an entirely different language, thanks to social media, so you probably feel like there’s a communication barrier behind some of the arguments you get into with your teen. When it seems as though you can’t relate to the adolescent living under your roof, even something as simple as reading teen quotes can shift your perspective enough to keep the peace with your mercurial offspring.

As you read through these quotes, it will likely stir up plenty of memories from growing up: the peer pressure, the awkwardness, and hopefully lots of the fun that comes with the wild abandon of adolescence as well. You know what else you should keep in mind? That teens today face an extra uphill battle when it comes to discovering who they are because they have to deal with the endless, ongoing feedback stream from TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, and all the other social media platforms (what even are they?!). It’s tough to be coming of age in a digital world.

So, bear that in mind as you browse through the following teen quotes. We’ve even included a section specifically geared towards teens so you can share them with your kid. Who knows? It might help put you on the same page (if only for a day).

Best Parents of a Teenager Quotes

1. “Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.” — Carol Burnett
2. “Friendships in childhood are usually a matter of chance, whereas in adolescence they are more often a matter of choice.” — David Elkind
3. “Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something harder to shock.” — Ben Lindsey
4. “As a teenager, I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fit 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
5. “For the youth, the indignation of most things will just surge as each birthday passes.” — Chris Evans
6. “Teenagers today are more free to be themselves and to accept themselves.” — John Knowles
7. “Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.” — Anita Brookner
8. “No matter how good you are, at some point your kids are gonna have to create their own independence and think that Mom and Dad aren’t cool, just to establish themselves. That’s what adolescence is about. They’re gonna go through that no matter what.” — Eddie Vedder
9. “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
10. “Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood.” — Louise J. Kaplan
11. “To an adolescent, there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent.” — Dave Barry
12. “Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath.” — Arnold H. Glasgow
13. “We must tell girls their voices are important.” — Malala Yousafzai
14. “I spent the first 14 years of my life convinced that my looks were hideous. Adolescence is painful for everyone, I know, but mine was plain weird.” — Uma Thurman
15. “Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.” — Mary Pipher
16. “I got through my teen years by being a bit of a clown.” — Diane Cilento
17. “If you just watch a teenager, you see a lot of uncertainty.” — Jamie Lee Curtis
18. “Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.” — Jules Feiffer
19. “Nobody understands anyone 18, including those who are 18.” — Jim Bishop
20. “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
21. “Female adolescence is — universally — an emotionally and psychologically intense period.” — Caitlin Flanagan
22. “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
23. “Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.” — Dave Berry
24. “The most important role models should and could be parents and teachers. But that said, once you’re a teenager, you’ve probably gotten as much of an example from your parents as you’re going to.” — Andrew Shue
25. “As I’ve said many times, the single most oppressed class in America right now is the teenager.” — Job Bob Briggs
26. “To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teenagers, I say just be patient: Even though it looks like you can’t do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.” — Marian Wright Edelman
27. “My own experience being bullied — it made me a more compassionate person. It made me more sympathetic to the adolescent experience.” — Carolyn Mackler
28. “I think you go through a period as a teenager of being quite cool and unaffected by things.” — Miranda Otto
29. “The toddler must say no in order to find out who she is. The adolescent says no to assert who she is not.” — Louise J. Kaplan
30. “Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.” — Laurence J. Peter
31. “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. Thinking you’re immortal leads to arrogance, thinking you deserve the best. Surviving means having the worst thrown at you and being able to continue on despite that. It means striving for what you want most, even when it seems out of your reach, even when everything is working against you.” — Francesca Zappia, Made You Up
32. “Teenagers who are never required to vacuum are living in one.” — Fred G. Gosman
33. “When I was a teenager, I read a lot of Poe.” — Dario Argento
34. “Everybody is a teenage idol.” — Barry Gibb
35. “The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we’ve all gone through that period. It’s not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic.” — Gus Van Sant
36. “I love being a parent of teenagers. I mean, yes, there’s the hormones, the skin problems, the bad hair days, the crying, the mood swings. But enough about me. My kids are great.” — Guilty Chocoholic Mama
37. “There is a point in every young person’s life when you realize that the youth that you’ve progressed through and graduate to some sort of adulthood is equally as messed up as where you’re going.” — Jena Malone
38. “I think there’s a time in your life where you don’t feel like you fit in. I think everyone has that when you’re a teenager, especially, and especially in the society we live in.” — Matthew Vaughn
39. “It’s about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by investing in teen pregnancy prevention.” — Jane Fonda
40. “Teen movies often have an unspoken underlying premise in which high school is seen as less serious than the adult world. But when your head is encased in that microcosm, it’s the most serious time of your life.” — Rian Johnson
41. “The scariest part of raising teenagers is remembering the stupid things you did as a teenager.” — Whitney Fleming
42. “If parenthood has taught me one thing, it’s that it is possible for a kid to shower for 40 minutes without actually getting clean.” — Kim Bongiorno
43. “I never really appreciated just how annoying I was until I gave birth to mini versions of myself and started arguing with them when they became teenagers.” — Raising Teens Today
44. “As kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It’s about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.” — Ron Taffel
45. “Being a mom of a teenager means a lot of forgiveness, a lot of grace, a lot of grit, and love that is both powerful and unconditional. But what a blessing it is to raise these teenagers and have a front-row seat on this wild ride.” — H. Duckworth
46. “No need to worry about your teenagers when they’re not at home. A national survey revealed that they all go to the same place — ‘out’ — and they all do the same thing — ‘nothing.'” — Bruce Lansky
47. “When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.” — Nora Ephron
48. “Teenagers. Everything is so apocalyptic.” — Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures
49. “Too many adults wish to ‘protect’ teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.” — Margaret A. Edwards
50. “She had been a teenager once, and she knew that, despite the apparent contradictions, a person’s teenager years lasted well into their fifties.” — Derek Landy, Mortal Coil
51. “Teens think listening to music helps them concentrate. It doesn’t. It relieves them of the boredom that concentration on homework induces.” — Marilyn vos Savant
52. “Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.” — Laurence J. Peter
53. “I grew up watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and used to dream that I would grow up to be just like her. In a way, Teen Wolf has a lot of those kinds of characters. We’re just kids by day, and yet we’re trying to fight demons and werewolves and bad people and save people that we love.” — Arden Cho

Best Inspirational Quotes for Teens

1. “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” — Stephen Hawking
2. “Young people willing to push super-hard to make something happen are the most powerful forces in the world.” — Sam Altman
3. “I love being a teen because you don’t have all the responsibilities of an adult yet.” — Elizabeth Gillies
4. “If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun.” — Alain de Botton
5. “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — e.e. cummings
6. “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
7. “Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human traits are now born.” — G. Stanley Hall
8. “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
9. “Youth comes but once in a lifetime.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
10. “Being a teen can be tough. Just try to surround yourself with really good friends 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
11. “If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something.” — Neil Gaiman
12. “Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.” — Maria Popova
13. “You are your own teacher. Investigate yourself to find the truth — inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.” — Ajahn Chah
14. “Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back. I’m going to help you forgive the things that you won’t let yourself forget.” — Jennifer Elisabeth
15. “It is better to be yourself and have no friends than to be like your friends and have no self.” — Unknown
16. “Everyone you admire was once a beginner.” — Jack Butcher
17. “Everything will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end!” — John Lennon
18. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
19. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind!” — Dr. Seuss
20. “When adults say, ‘Teenagers think they are invincible’ with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes, and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.” — John Green, Looking for Alaska