Adolescence
Quotes - During childhood life is like dancing and later life becomes wrestling
“Teaching
self-discipline to children is a vital part of the parenting job description.”
―
Mike Weiford
“Teaching
a child from a young age, through words and actions, that every human being’s
life and safety is precious and is to be guarded promotes a culture of
nonviolence.”
―
Mike Weiford
“In
adolescence, fantasies can seem quite real.”
―
Ravi Ranjan GoswamiGoswami
“Why
can’t you just be yourself?” Stella asked once.
“Maybe
I don’t know who that is,” her daughter shot back. And Stella understood, she
did. That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone. That was
what had captured her in the charm shop, all those years ago. Then adulthood
came, your choices solidifying, and you realize that everything you are had
been set in motion years before. The rest was aftermath. So she understood why
her daughter was searching for a self, and she even blamed herself for it.”
―
Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
“During
childhood life is like dancing and later life becomes wrestling.”
―
Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
“A
hallmark of female adolescence is the realization that you are being
commodified. You then are developing a sense of self within a cultural
framework that values you primarily as an object.”
―
Natalie M. Esparza, Spectacle: Discover a Vibrant Life through the Lens of
Curiosity
“Our
teachers forgot to mention that by throwing our tassels in the air, we throw
every shit anyone can ever give about us. The world says it cares, but it goes
ahead and does something different. I wish we weren’t cared for later than
we’re supposed to be cared for. It's like: 'You graduated college. There’s no
way you have any trace of still being a scared child. Oh, you fucked up? Here’s
a jail cell.”
―
Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song
“Least
thing we can do is to wake up in the morning and protect the good things that
were. The past deserves it.”
―
Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song
“The
trees were still, bodyless and motionless as reflections now that the wind had
dropped; waiting pagan and untroubled by rumors of immortality for winter and
death. Far, far away across the October earth a dog howled, and the mellow long
sound of a horn wavered about her, filling the air like a disturbance of still
waters, then was absorbed into silence again leaving the dark world motionless
about her, quiet and slightly sad and beautiful. Possum hunters, she thought,
and wondered as it died away if she had heard any sound at all.”
―
William Faulkner, Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner
“Just
like the Little Firefly, you can trust that you will grow up when the time is
right. Be yourself and your true friends will love and support you just the way
you are. Celebrating magical moments with genuine friends makes life even
sweeter.”
―
Sheri Fink, The Little Firefly
“After
having taken a long and hard look at the echelonment of the various appendices
of the sexual function, the moment appears to have arrived to expound the
central theorem of my apocritique. Unless you were to put a halt to the
implacable unfolding of my reasoning with the objection that, good prince, I
will permit you to formulate: "You take all your examples from
adolescence, which is indeed an important period in life, but when all is said
and done it only occupies an exceedingly brief fraction of this. Are you not
afraid, then, that your conclusions, the finesse and rigour of which we admire,
may ultimately turn out to be both partial and limited?" To this amiable
adversary I will reply that adolescence is not only an important period in
life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full
sense of the word. The attractile drives are unleashed around the age of
thirteen, after which they gradually diminish, or rather they are resolved in
models of behaviour which are, after all, only constrained forces. The violence
of the initial explosion means that the outcome of the conflict may remain
uncertain for years; this is what is called a transitory regime in electrodynamics.
But little by little the oscillations become slower, to the point of resolving
themselves in mild and melancholic long waves; from this moment on all is
decided, and life is nothing more than a preparation for death. This can be
expressed in a more brutal and less exact way by saying that man is a
diminished adolescent.
'After
having taken a long and hard look at the echelonment of the various appendices
of the sexual function, the moment seems to me to have come to expound the
central theorem of my apocritique. For this I will utilize the lever of a
condensed but adequate formulation, to wit:
Sexuality
is a system of social hierarchy”
―
Michel Houellebecq, Whatever
“It
was actually Nadine who'd insisted that I come with her, telling me that I wasn't
social enough, that real life was not lived in books, that there was nothing
wrong with a little lightness, a little carefree partying. She was right. Maybe
if I'd listened to her a lot earlier, I wouldn't have missed out on my youth.”
―
Philippe Besson, Lie With Me
“The
classroom is a special place. It’s one of the few times a group of different
people have to be in the same room. Outside, it’s only strangers in subway
rides for a few minutes. It’s rare. We never really know people again.”
―
Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song
“We
discard the elderly, but the elderly used to discard the elderly. Those old
people we tease are just listening to our insults and not deciding to speak.
They’re not stupid. They just understand. Old people are young people who’ve
had a few more heartbreaks, thousands of more workdays, and who’ve prepared a
dozen more eulogies.”
―
Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song
“Beat
him until he softens. Lift his ragged body and raise him with your whiskey
breath. Get him out alive. Watch from your grave as he beats his own child,
because you beat him, because yours beat you, because his beat his, because his
beat his...”
―
Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song
“Lover
winds a guitar string tight enough to slice your fingertip when you strum. It’s
the guitar beat against the belly of the bluesman, sitting ugly on a stool,
legs open in front of everyone. Lover is Winslow with sun blinding and wind
sticking dust to your cheekbones when you peel out from the crater. The
swirling force of cream stirring itself in a reheated cup of coffee steamed by
exhaustion. The hands that stripped him bare in his sleep, played his hormones
like a mean, magic riff 'til he woke up wet and high inside his bones.”
―
Laurie Perez, Virga in Death Valley
“I've
grown up I guess. Which isn't about your age or your body. It's about the
moment you stop kidding yourself that the things you've lost can ever be
found.”
―
Maggie Thrash, Lost Soul, Be at Peace
“In
kindergarten they drill it into your head: NEVER GET IN A CAR WITH SOMEONE YOU
DON'T KNOW. But what they don't say is how you can live in the same house as
someone and still be total strangers.”
―
Maggie Thrash, Lost Soul, Be at Peace
“Whatever
was said or done, I knew what I wanted; and that was to be a boy among the
boys.”
―
George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin
“Kelly
and I saw a future (otherwise known as the sixth grade) in which we would
remain invisible and unchanged while around us other girls suddenly bloomed. In
Kelly's version, the girls burst, blousy peonies after the first hot summer
night. In mine, after seven days and seven nights of rain, these girls became
dandelions while we remained green clumps of crabgrass. Kelly and I knew what
we needed. Lips that looked pink, wet, and just licked. Sally Campbell's lips
had started to look that way at the beginning of fifth grade. Sally was pretty,
and pretty girls were always ahead of the rest of us. Sally's lips and also her
mouth smelled of strawberry bubblegum. Kelly and I were jealous of both the
shine and the scent. In order to make us feel better, I told Kelly that the
word "Sally" tasted of pumpkins, without the brown sugar or the
cinnamon. Just a squash.
Sally,
nonetheless, set the example for us. Lips that could be seen from across the
classroom we understood were desirable, and gloss for them has to be our first
acquisition. Kelly begged her mother, Beth Anne, and then resorted to a promise
of future weight loss for a shade of pink called Flamingo Paradise, which Beth
Anne picked out for her. Beth Anne, at the time, didn't pay attention to Kelly.
Beth Anne completely ignored the fact that her only daughter had asked her for
lip gloss, strawberry-bubblegum-flavored. Flamingo Paradise was lipstick, the
kind that my grandmother Iris wore. It went on creamy but soon became cracked
and dry. The only flavor it gave to our lips was something that also belonged
to Iris: talcum powder mixed with a crushed vanilla cream wafer.”
―
Monique Truong, Bitter in the Mouth
