How did I get to be a grown-up? At times, I find myself still sitting on the hillside, plotting revenge against the adult world.

Wow you’ve grown!” Yeah, that tends to happen…

When you’re born a light is switched on, a light which shines up through your life. As you get older the light still reaches you, sparkling as it comes up through your memories. And if...

[Jo to her mother] I knew there was mischief brewing. I felt it and now it’s worse than I imagined. I just wish I could marry Meg myself, and keep her safe in the family.

Part of growing up was learning not to be quite that honest – learning when it was better to lie, rather than to hurt someone with the truth.

As long as Nelson was socked into baseball statistics or that guitar or even the rock records that threaded their sound through all the fibers of the house, his occupation of the room down the...

Each time that I have felt like I might finally be figuring some things out, life has decided to change the rules and I’ve had to start all over again.

I wish that love could be broken down the way it breaks me down.

You are still a child. You must go where you are told and do as you are told. But it won’t always be so. Soon you will be in charge of yourself. Until that time:...

Win or lose, good or bad, the experience will change you.

If your gonna screw up, do it while you’re young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.

As a child growing up in Haiti I experienced the wrath and destructive power of hurricanes. My heart is filled with tears for the victims and all those who have lost loved ones in Hurricanes...

After it’s all over, the early childhood, a chain of birthdays woven with candlelight, piles of presents, voices of relatives singing and praising your promise and future, after the years of schooling, fitting yourself into...

I grew up believing that I’m not allowed to make life decisions. What I only can do, is to confirm and go with the decisions that my fate has chosen for me.

Growing up is never straight forward.There are moments when everything is fine, and other moments where you realize that there are certain memories that you’ll never get back, and certain people that are going to...

when we were kidslaying around the lawnon ourbellieswe often talkedabouthowwe’d like todieandwe allagreed on thesamething;we’d alllike to diefucking(althoughnone of ushaddone anyfucking)and nowthatwe are hardlykidsany longerwe think moreabouthownot todieandalthoughwe’rereadymost ofuswouldprefer todo italoneunder thesheetsnowthatmost ofushave fuckedour livesaway.

On some days she was able to see both sun and moon at the same time. Like feuding cousins, they hung in two corners of the vast world-ceiling refusing to look at one another. The...

People say you’re born innocent, but it’s not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can’t wash off....

I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me...

I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper adult. I had been very grown-up in primary school. But as I continued through secondary school, I in fact became less grown-up. And...

I never left because a part of me will always be in that house…

Growing up in a household where something is terribly wrong, you feel the weight of that mysterious something even though it’s unspoken. It eats at you. Confuses you. It leaves you wondering if your view...

up” as a physical matter. The changes after—Elijah has to believe they’re a matter of choice. Looking at Danny used to be like looking at the future. Now looking at Danny is like looking at...

It’s easy to grow old if you haven’t grown up

I don’t know as much about children as I would like to. I am godmother to a wonderful three-year-old boy named dominic, the son of my friend Sophie. They live in Scotland, near Oban, and...

Without making mistakes, there won’t be lessons learned. Without getting hurt, there won’t be knowledge gained. The only way we grow is by learning from the past. Always be willing to learn and grow daily....

Being a kid has always been about being watched.

I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason.

You battled monsters. You sweat and cried your way to this one prolific moment where you finally realize that those dark days and sleepless nights were pre-requisites to your becoming.

I wish on one of the stars for divine orchestration and save the rest of them for all of the other girls in the world who will feel like I do tonight.

I know more about my father than I used to know: I know he wanted to be a pilot in the war but could not, because the work he did was considered essential to the...

People and birds were alike. Things happened that hurt them or made their lives harder. All the time. But losing someone or something important didn’t mean the end of everything. It meant you had to...

One must always be aware, to notice—even though the cost of noticing is to become responsible.

It doesn’t matter. I’ve moved on from something that was never there to begin with. That’s one of the dire things about escaping from childhood. Eventually you grow up and realize the things you wanted...

I think about how maybe it’s not things that change but people that change, and maybe that’s the change everyone is really talking about.

I suppose I was artistic as a child. Our house was so full of art and artists that it never occurred to me not to be constantly making things. I just assumed that all kids...

My mother says it can’t stay like this, but I believe it will. The Pants are like an omen. They stand for the promise we made to one another, that no matter what happens, we...

Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into...

Don’t grow old to give up and don’t give up growing up

If you look for endings you can always find one, but I truly felt as if I had used up the last of my youth, if youth is that finite stage of life when it...

I haven’t been very impressed lately.By people,or places,or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind.

… so this is for us.This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and loveand this is for doing it even if no one will ever knowbecause the beauty is in the...

In this league, it’s about growing up. That’s one of the areas I’ve got to grow up in. . . . Everyone knows I can score. Everyone knows I can do all these great things,...

That is great for the state of Texas. Growing up here I know that is always a big game. That will be exciting. They have a fine, fine football team. I know in Denver last...

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build...

That’s one of the things we learn as we grow older — how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did at twenty.

I still don’t know what it really means to grow up. However, if I happen to meet you, one day in the future, by then, I want to become someone you can be proud to...

I often think that at the center of me is a voice that at last did split, a house in my heart so invaded with other people and their speech, friends I believed I was...

I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.

worth it” was an understatement. Maybe then I would feel okay.