So much has been done to my body, and still, somehow, not enough.

Adult helplessness destroys children. Or it forces them to become tiny adults of their own.

Dad?””What?” A small bird rises from a tree in front of us.”What should I be when I grow up?”The bird disappears over a far ridge. I don’t know what to say. “Honest,” I finally say.

One of the oddest things about being grown-up was looking back at something you thought you knew and finding out the truth of it was completely different from what you had always believed. (Bone Crossed)

[Kasem is] a legend, a guy I used to listen to growing up. And not only listen to, but pretended to be,

…Alright, Mandy Valems,” Alecto agreed.

A lot of childhood effort, worry, and whispering goes into cracking the codes of adult life. Children have to be accomplished spies.

Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be...

I was going to be a memory when I grew up.

My dreams are going through their death flurries. I thought they were all safely buried, but sometimes they stir in their grave, making my heartstrings twinge. I mean no particular dream, you understand, but the...

When you’re finally a grown-up, one of the things you find is that there are no grown-ups.

As for the fact that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle apeared to be going their different ways when they were usually inseparable, these things happened as people got older–Ron and Hermione, Harry reflected sadly, were living...

I was never afraid of the dark and I spent my youth walking through empty playgrounds at midnight, worried mothers telling girls to be careful and ”the world is an ugly place and not everyone...

We had so many dreams as children. Where do they go when we grow? Are they swallowed up by the mundane things of everyday life? Or do we lose them, leave them behind us in...

Wow, that long?

I don’t like being with grown-up people. I’ve known that a long time. I don’t like it because I don’t know how to get on with them.

For me- and for everybody else, probably- this is my first experience growing old, and the emotions I’m having, too, are all first-time feelings. If it were something I’d experienced before, then I’d be able...

Growing up is difficult. Strangely, even when we have stopped growing physically, we seem to have to keep on growing emotionally, which involves both expansion and shrinkage, as some parts of us develop and others...

I’m working hard to have a good life.You don’t need fancy things to feel good. You can hug a puppy. You can buy a can of paint and surround yourself with color. You can plant...

I’ve loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn’t change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child....

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don’t have to pay taxes – naturally, no one wants to...

I can do this… I can start over. I can save my own life and I’m never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love.

Remember, nothing happens before it’s supposed to, so trust that, as you are striving for authenticity and personal excellence, the recognition of your life’s purpose is nearing closer.

It feels like the world is folding up around me, like origami paper, and I’m trapped inside of its breathless center.

Our parents thought we might be corrupted by one another into becoming whatever it was they most feared: an incorrigible masturbator, a winsome homosexual, a recklessly impregnatory libertine. On our behalf they dreaded the closeness...

I focused on the passing houses filled with couples who’d somehow survived this teenage craziness of ‘he likes her but she likes him and he likes somebody else, you just can’t win.’ How did they...

6. Sleep with a bra on every night in fear of your boobs dropping should you forget. Intermediate: Don’t wear a bra in the daytime. Advanced: Forget bras and wear the Hear Comes Trouble T-shirt...

When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the...

Growing up in Indiana, one learns early on that talent and accomplishments count — but honesty and integrity count more, … For Hoosiers, the term ‘Midwestern values’ is not a cliche but a way of...

Scott: I don’t think I’m ready to be a grown-up.Kim: I don’t think you are either, buddy. But hey, you’ll get it. It just takes practice.

I had a lot of growing up to do. A lot of times, I learned the hard way.

Because I was conceived and born and I grew up. I’m breathing and my heart is beating and as much as it hurts ― as much searing, monumental pain it causes me ― I have...

But I can’t manage to grow up and change shape. I’m still tiny, and staying that way, perhaps because I know the secret that everyone pretends to be unaware of, perhaps because I know that...

I wanted to say all these things about how you just have to hold on to the things you love and let go of all the rest.

And you might try to hide or protect yourself, or compare the different states of love,but you must not grow up, must not act wise when it comes to love.You must stay foolish and fall...

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...

Growing up I didn’t know any other way.

My existence is young like the blossoming leaves. I have experienced nothing yet.

it feels so scary getting old.

There are only two things that determine whether you’re old enough to do something — whether you understand what the hell you’re getting yourself into — and whether you’re willing to accept responsibility for it...

Part of me is afraid that everyone will laugh, that I’m a caricature of myself.

Some days you go bear hunting and you get eaten. Some days you come home with a nice rug to roll around on, and bear steaks. What they don’t tell you as a kid is...

He broke off his explanation, seeing in his daughter’s eyes the exact moment that a child first understands there are limits on what her parents can do, rather than just limits on what they choose...

Please… Whoever you are, whatever you are… I believe in you even though I don’t completely understand you. I feel you around me even though I can’t exactly describe what I’m feeling. Sometimes things happen...

Your passions don’t have to connect to one another and no one needs to sign off on them. Passion isn’t logical… it’s only the fuel which keeps our souls alive. Let it be that simple.

He was painfully shy, which, as is often the manner of the painfully shy, he overcompensated for by being too loud at the wrong times.

Relax. You will become an adult. You will figure out your career. You will find someone who loves you. You have a whole lifetime; time takes time. The only way to fail at life is...

There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder, either.

Recalling his first dreams of flight when he was a small child, Max acknowledged that his entire existence had been building up to this tipping point where he could finally choose to release his self-imposedlimitations.

I wanted her and only her.I wanted to be a part of her storm. I wanted to feel my pulse against hers.I wanted the bitter on her sweet tongue. I wanted the sadness in her...