Since the 1960s, mainstream media has searched out and co-opted the most authentic things it could find in youth culture, whether that was psychedelic culture, anti-war culture, blue jeans culture. Eventually heavy metal culture, rap culture, electronica - they'll look for it and then market it back to kids at the mall.

I was 10, and I played Jim Hawkins in 'Treasure Island' at school, and this great Liverpudlian actor called Andrew Schofield - he was Johnny Rotten in 'Sid And Nancy' - came to watch it, and he had a word with my mum and dad afterwards and told them I should have a go at the Everyman youth theatre. I've never looked back.

Skills-building opportunities should be extended to people outside of the mainstream talent pool. That might include at-risk youth, veterans returning to the workforce, or immigrants struggling to make a life for themselves in a foreign culture. The process for creating wealth must begin with creating opportunity for all.

What man is there, surrounded though he be with the love of wife and children, who does not retain a memory of the romantic affection of boys for each other? Having felt it, he could scarcely have forgotten it, and if he never felt it, he missed one of the most golden of the prizes of youth, unrecapturable in mature life.

I went to church as a kid, but it was as much a social thing as anything going to the youth group with the other kids and whatnot. It wasn't until I got out of college that I got on my own religious trip and started finding other things out there as well as philosophies. I've kinda been on my own spiritual path since then.

I was 11 when a teacher suggested to my parents that they should send me to drama classes to curb my disruptive ways in the classroom. The next Saturday I was acting, and thereafter it became a ritual of my youth to see a show at the Belvoir on Sundays and, if I was lucky, another at the Opera House on Monday after school.

As our values are the core to who we are as human beings, they are also the easiest way to identify and connect with others in meaningful ways. Think about it - most political campaigns are based around values. Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign galvanized millions of youth behind two very clear values - hope and change.

I would say that my role model, as far as just somebody leading by example, which to me is what a great youth counselor does - they are there to talk to and lead by example - would be my mom, but she wasn't a youth counselor. She was a teacher, and she is a good person and definitely one of the biggest influences in my life.

We look at the African-American community, for a long time those of us who be considered strong - black men - for whatever reason, haven't done a good job of taking care of the weak. And we were doing things that render taking care of our youth and taking care of our women and our families impossible, when our lives are taken.

I did a show called 'Freaks and Geeks' when I was very young. And I had the naivete and arrogance of youth. You know, I really assumed that when the show got cancelled, like, oh, it doesn't matter, you just keep rolling, you know. I'm about to be the biggest star of the world. And then I was met with five years of unemployment.

But, in North Korea, it's just the opposite. There's one story. It's written by the Kim regime. And 23 million people are conscripted to be secondary characters. There, as a youth, your aptitude towards certain jobs is measured, and the rest of your life is dictated, whether you'll be a fisherman or a farmer or an opera singer.

In 1941, the BBC was setting up local, low-powered transmitters that were switched off if there was an air raid so they couldn't be used by German planes to navigate. As a 'youth in training,' my job was to switch the transmitter on in the mornings and off at night, and to check that it, and the feeder land lines, were working.

Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous?

When a fan buys a ticket, we learn an enormous amount about them: What bands they like, where they live, how much they are willing to spend. Someday, a fan will be sitting in a bar and his cellphone will text message 'Sonic Youth are playing tonight. Do you want to go?' He'll buy his ticket over the phone and walk to the concert.

Youth is a lifestyle; it's not a blessing from God. If we treat our bodies as if they are not the most precious things we possess, then obviously we will show wear and tear. We're like a good pair of jeans. If we take care of them, they'll remain classic forever, but if we batter and abuse them they'll look like tattered old rags.

I saw my first two Broadway shows when I was 4 years old, 'The Lion King' and 'Beauty and the Beast,' and after both of them I came home and reenacted the entirety of the shows on my living room table for my family and friends. I started doing that after every show I saw until I actually did my first youth production when I was 5.

I was doing a show at the National Youth Theatre, playing an old man. Before that I had played fat clowns and I thought, 'If I want to have the career I would like, I am going to have to lose weight.' I was just starting drama school, and found I was moving around a lot. I also started to eat sensibly. The weight just dropped off.

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were. They hold hands and scream: 'Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid! We are together!' They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.

I only went along to youth theatre with a friend when I was young to try to make myself a bit more sociable. But the whole thing was quite sore; it really hurt me trying to get into drama school. It was a world I knew nothing about - it was very middle class; all that usual stuff. But I was young, determined, and I just went for it.

I grew up in the church, and I always kind of knew Bible stories and knew the Sunday school answers, but when I was a freshman in high school I joined youth group, and that's when I started to see radical love; that's when I started to see what Christian community is supposed to look like and what fellowship is supposed to look like.

No individual has done more to help me pursue a career in science than my wife of forty-five years. I met Enid Cassandra Morgan during the election campaign of 1948 when she was a Sunday school teacher, a leader of the youth organizations of St. Phillips Episcopal Church, and the head of Harlem Youth for the election of Henry Wallace.

If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then, I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.

I'm excited to create more awareness about the importance of giving the youth of America a choice. There's a 24-hour music channel. There's a 24-hour comedy channel. I believe there's a 24-hour gay channel coming. Why isn't there a 24-hour Christian channel that's edgy and hip and cool and new and different, like all that other stuff?

I think a great idea would be involving our various military services along the border all the way from San Diego to Houston. We've got military bases all over the country. We can just move some people down there and let those cartels who are doing a lot of hurt to the youth of America, let those cartels fight against the Marine Corps.

We, as artists, we have the right to express ourselves. That is our first amendment, freedom of speech. But I also believe that we have an obligation to the youth to be somewhat responsible in what we say on records. But I think that comes with age. I think that comes with artists growing up and becoming assured of who they are as people.

I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school.

If I'm a cop, and every time I see a young black youth - whether I watch them on TV, movies, or just see them hanging out - and they're not looking properly dressed, properly refined, you know, carrying himself, conducting himself proper hours of the day - things that a man does - you're going to have a certain fear and stereotype of them.

Club culture is always going to be a reflection of youth culture, but I think we're maybe moving into a time when the club is a place where older people can go, too. And it's a place people go to connect to themselves, it's not always about the party. It's also about letting off steam and expressing yourself and connecting to other people.

Because of my intense hopes for the youth of China, I feel very keenly my responsibility for their future success or failure. The fate of China lies in their hands. The responsibility for organizing and training them to become worthy citizens of China, able to undertake the tasks of Resistance and Reconstruction, is mine; I cannot evade it.

I was walking down a street and after his death and saw a billboard on the side of a brick wall for Van's shoes. It was a picture of Hopper's face, and all it said was, 'Hopper Lives.' So I think he's still part of youth culture. There are lessons to be learned from Hopper about being a young person who wants to live the art life in America.

There's no way I would have got to see so much of the world, with my humble background, without modelling. We were penniless and hungry for most of my youth. I washed the sheets in the bathtub in my bedroom and hung them out of the window on the clothes line, which in winter was difficult as the sheets would freeze and get stuck to the line.

I was all-state in four sports in New Jersey, but sometimes I couldn't get served at a restaurant two blocks from my high school. There were no job opportunities then... the only thing a black youth could aspire to be was a bellboy or a pullman or an elevator operator, or, maybe, a teacher. There was a time when all we had was black baseball.

I'm a little left of center, for sure, with Angels & Airwaves. But even when I get really weird, it's not that weird. It's not like some obscure Sonic Youth record or something. We don't take it quite that far. But what we do like are crescendos, and we do like when a song catches you off guard and it gives you the chills up and down your arms.

Our culture puts a lot of pressure on the idea that a woman's self-worth is defined by her looks. It's just awful. And they also put a tremendous premier on youth, which is so, so debilitating and upsetting to so many women. I don't know why they're so dopey. Seriously. I don't see any problem with that and if you do, you should celebrate it. Don't chop your face up.

Homeland Security was rejecting, is rejecting terms like Jihad. They don't want to use terms like Jihad or Sharia, because they feel that alienates the youth in terms of propagandizing. However, an imam can talk about the killing of gays. To fight a cult, which is, this is the cult, you have to use the terminology of the cult, because how else can you explain what the cult and its practices are?

Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when you were young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would?

Less and less is the question being asked as to whether developments are taking place in a democratic and free way. Europe is in a phase in which this output is no longer sufficiently visible or tangible. Youth unemployment is still far too high, we still haven't solved our currency problem and living conditions in Europe are drifting apart. That is one reason why critics say that our Europe is based on yesteryear's model.

Share This Page