"Growing old is mandatory - growing up is optional." - Chili Davis Growing up is a beautiful process. With every passing day, we learn something new. Every day, is a new page in the book of our lives, and every special moment, a great chapter. Yes, growing up is synonymous with maturity, but it doesn't mean we no longer remain children at heart. Growing up is watching yourself evolve everyday. And not just yourself, your thoughts and your ideologies too. We see people around us grow up too. Slowly, we start realizing that everything advances and becomes something different. Everyday we see life unfold itself in front of us differently. Not such a bad thing, is it? "Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up." - 'The Wonder Years', Television Series "We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves." - May Lamberton Becker "The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise." - Alden Nowlan "If you're gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back." - Winston Groom "You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was." - Irish Saying "Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won't do that." - Walt Disney "A grownup is a child with layers on." - Woody Harrelson "It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually." - M. Scott Peck "I've heard that it's possible to grow up - I've just never met anyone who's actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don't go our way, we whisper secrets with our best friends in the dark, we look for comfort where we can find it, and we hope - against all logic, against all experience. Like children, we never give up hope..." - Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy "Part of growing up is just taking what you learn from that and moving on and not taking it to heart." - Beverley Ann Mitchell "You grow up the day you have your first real laugh - at yourself." - Ethel Barrymore "Sometimes, we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up." - Dr. James C. Dobson "Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up." - Tom Stoppard "Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been." - Mark Twain "You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going." - P. J. O'Rourke "Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers; the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul." - 'The Wonder Years', Television Series "If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know, and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge." - Junot Díaz "A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age." - Robert Frost "At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment." - Benjamin Franklin "At sixteen I was stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?" - Jules Feiffer "If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!" - J.M. Barrie "Oh", she thought, "how horrible it is that people have to grow up-and marry-and change!" - L.M. Montgomery "Maturity is when your world opens up and you realize that you are not the center of it." - M.J. Croan "You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going." - P.J. O'Rourke "Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience... and pimples." - J.M. Barrie Now that you have read these quotes about growing up, you'll realize how people perceive the process differently at different ages. It's not all that bad you know, growing up. How else would the ugly duckling become a beautiful swan?