Millennial Quotes

“Have you noticed that the world shrinks when you travel?”
― Richie Norton

“Being an adult is not that great. I’ve gone from being excited about life to being afraid of it.”
― B. Fox, Paper Castles

“In short, millennials have been dealt a bad hand in their career, social, and romantic lives—some even in their family. In the karma points of the world, millennials are of the lowest caste so far. As a result, they are treated with disdain, contempt, and disrespect. Most of the time, they don’t fight back, usually in danger of losing their financial stability.”
― Cate East, Generational Astrology: How Astrology Can Crack the Millennial Code

“In order to live on this Earth together in harmony, humanity must make certain compromises to relate to each other. Everyone must make the necessary adaptations at some point in their lives—as children, they must adapt to their guardians; as adults, to their authorities and governments; and as elderly persons, to their caretakers. Those at the top now may not be there one day, and those at the bottom now could eventually rise to the top. Life is a cycle.”
― Cate East, Generational Astrology: How Astrology Can Crack the Millennial Code

“I spent hours perusing the bookcases, knee-deep in second-hand novels that smelled like people I'd never met.”
― Rachel Corsini, Sushi and Sea Lions

“Granny flats are misnamed. They were once intended for older relatives, so they can live near their adult children and grandchildren. Hence the appellation. Down in the lowlands of Boomertown, there are many such little residences. But they’re not for grannies.

Instead, the buildings should be called ‘children and grandchildren emergency shelters’ because that’s what they’ve become. Whole families cram themselves into a few dozen square metres of space and meanwhile, the grandparents stay in the big main house, rattling around their many empty rooms like rubber balls in a vast squash court.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“We are in an era of overachievers where nothing is ever enough.”
― Maira Cheeda

“In the future,
Instagram will be seen as an antiquity.
Anyone remember Hi-5 or Myspace?
Know then know life constantly evolves.
So, lift your eyes off your phone
and be present with the only part of evolution that would always stay with you: YOURSELF.”
― Sahndra Fon Dufe

“Typical millennial. Do you want free shipping to?”
― Michael Koryta, If She Wakes

“Soon enough, his learners will see across the planet. They'll watch the vast boreal forest from space and read the species-teeming tropics from eye level. They'll study rivers and measure what's in them. They'll collate the data of every wild creature ever tagged and map their wanderings. They'll read every sentence in every article that every field scientist ever published. They'll binge-watch every landscape that anyone has pointed a camera at. They'll listen to all the sounds of the streaming Earth. They'll do what the genes of their ancestors shaped them to do, what all their forebears have ever done themselves. They'll speculate on what it takes to live and put those speculations to the test. Then they'll say what life wants from people, and how it might use them.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“So, when can your mother expect another grandchild?’ Mrs Dankworth utters, just as the tea is being poured.
I stare at Mrs Dankworth, well aware that my mother’s eyes are on me. I consider a comeback, but respond with a lame, ‘I guess time will tell, Mrs Dankworth. It will depend on what happens in life and what Bailey and I want to do.’
It isn’t the answer I want to give. I want to tell Mrs Dankworth to take a short walk off a long pier, to swim with a pod of sharks, to have a stroke, to be eaten by her five cats. But I’m conditioned to be polite to a generation of people that can demand any information from me they want without consequence.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“After decades of shaping of the world, the Boomers are finally facing their end. It’s something we all must deal with one day. But when you’ve experienced power your whole life, the end of one’s life is the ultimate moment of being powerless in the face of something you can’t change.
And they hate the very thought of it.”
― I.M. Millennial

“In between one heartbeat and the next, I know my time in Boomertown is at an end.
And not even for my sake or Bailey’s, but for Ace’s. I came, I saw, and unlike Caesar, I did not conquer. But then, I never could have done that, anyway.
I think that’s the real secret to the Boomer generation.
They gave us a rigged game from the start. Gen X, Millennials and Zoomers played against the house. We were told we could win if we just worked hard enough, but most of us have lost out in some way or another.”
― I.M. Millennial

“Many of my parents’ friends own more than one house, sometimes so many that whole dwellings sit unused and empty for years. And so it’s an odd contradiction that they often seem to get stuck on the most minute details when it comes to renovations. My hypothesis is that this is a way to feel the thrill of ownership come to life again. It’s polishing the already gilded lily.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“I’ve found environmentalism isn’t popular with many Boomers unless it gives them good social value; a round of applause for recycling or for purchasing themselves the latest state-of-the-art electric car. They were born amid one of the largest eras of value-by-resource-extraction, and they’re just not wired to understand scarcity.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“The house is in moderate condition, but when we do the usual dance of exploring the price range, the agent clarifies that the owner has high expectations.
The owner interjects and I hear the full story from the man himself. ‘My house has been valued at a million,’ he says with a grin. ‘Though I’ve been told it might be worth more than that. Would you believe it only cost me a year’s income back in the eighties? Had three children and never had to worry about money or a place to live. And now the value of it just keeps going up! It’s unbelievable what people have to pay for houses these days. Never would have imagined it.’ He cackles at this, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“I’m her grandmother!’ my mother repeats, now shouting. ‘I have rights. I get a say in how she lives her life!’
That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it?
Rights.
Who has the right to dictate to family, friends and the world about how people should live, how things should work and what life means?
Boomers have expressed these rights for decades. And they’ve refused to cede authority and autonomy to the generations that follow. Even the Trailers live in the Boomers’ shadow.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“But that’s what it’s like being a Millennial in a Boomer’s world. There’s always someone else pulling the strings.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Being back in Boomertown has exposed us to an unforeseen avenue of questions from my parents’ Boomer friends.
In particular, why do Bailey and I only have one child? Also, when will we have more children? How does my daughter feel about being an only child? Do I know only children are very sad and lonely? And that only children end up spoiled, crazy and socially maladaptive?”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Boomers with any property at all have made fortunes selling their lawns, garages, driveways and spare plots to developers who are desperate to capitalise on the property boom and the younger generations desperate for somewhere to live.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Boomer parents can have strange blind spots; they always seem ready to blame anyone but themselves or their children. I think this happens because they see their children as an extension of themselves. If they themselves are perfect, then so must their children be.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“I’d come to Boomertown to find a sanctuary. But I hadn’t realised that in doing so I’d stepped into a trap. I hadn’t lived with my parents for years and I’m realising I’d underestimated just how much they were interested in again being active in guiding my life.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Do all Boomers think Millennials are riven with anxiety? Maybe we are. But maybe we’re justified in feeling that way about a lot of things. The world’s in a pretty sorry state.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“I’ve seen statistics that Boomers drink a great deal more than their Millennial children and that Millennial alcohol use is declining year on year. It could be because Millennials have less disposable income. Or it could be that we need all our wits about us to navigate life’s many challenges.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Land is expensive,’ my mother says with a shrug. ‘We built most of our first house ourselves from a kit set. You should do the same. Or you could live in a caravan for a while.’
Like most people our age, we could live in a caravan for several years and still not afford to buy land in a location near where we could find work. And even if we were to buy land, new building regulations and ever stricter environmental laws make it near impossible for anyone to build a house themselves, let alone live in a caravan while doing so.
I know someone who tried living in a tiny home on her own land and lasted three months before the Boomer neighbours on each side of her property reported her to the council. She received a fine and was evicted from her own patch.
Whatever property ladder existed before has been long ago pulled up by the Boomers and the Trailers who trail behind them.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Bailey, Ace and I continue to look for a place to live, and, it would seem, so is everyone else. In fact, word around Eden Perch is that a prosperous millennial woman from Boomer City has expressed interest in the scrubby lot that sits behind my parents’ home. According to my mother’s contact, the woman is not only interested in purchasing the land but also in building. With this revelation, the whole suburb is in an uproar. None of the other residents of Eden Perch want to buy the plot, but they don’t want anyone else to have it either. And now that someone else has shown interest, every objection comes crawling up to meet the challenge.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“I have become used to the presumption that our place in line is only a suggestion to anyone of the Boomer persuasion. I try not to take it to heart.”
― I.M. Millennialial

“I have to admit that the duo have figured out a clever approach to supporting themselves. The more they portray themselves as young and incapable, the more the Boomers around them move into place to pay for them.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“Dr Babbington snorts a mighty snort of derision. ‘You young people spend entirely too much time online, self-diagnosing.’ He pauses and adds with a smile, ‘You all turn up here telling me that you’ve got this or that and talking about worst-case scenarios. You need to leave medicine to the medical professionals. That’s what we’ve been trained to do.”
― I.M. Millennial, A Year in Boomertown: A Memoir

“My reality tore at the seams like low-rise jeans ill equipped to house a normal human body.”
― Jill Gutowitz, Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays