Adolescent Quotes

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another til I drop.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Stay true to yourself and listen to your inner voice. It will lead you to your dream.”
― James Ross

“Juno MacGuff: I was out handling things way beyond my maturity level.”
― Diablo Cody, Juno: The Shooting Script

“Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“There is so much woman in many a girl and too much boy in many a man.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“He's a pitiful soul. Gentle, frail, the least likely to protest. In a nation of hairy men, Father stands out like a sleek adolescent boy. For years, his hair was thin and wispy, then, in one year, gone. He couldn't even keep the hair on top of his head.”
― Michael Benzehabe, Persianality

“I have realised I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac.”
― Sue Townsend, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

“Capture your youth, while you can.”
― Anthony Liccione

“The less he says, the colder the concrete floor gets. The cold refrigerated air brushes over my feet and curls up my ankles. The coldness turns my toes inward, and I rock uneasily. Fear makes your body do things you can’t control. In battle, soldiers experience fight-or-flight, and their blood retreats into their core, their torso, depleting the extremities—which includes the brain.”
― Michael Benzehabe, Zonked Out: The Teen Psychologist of San Marcos Who Killed Her Santa Claus and Found the Blue-Black Edge of the Love Universe

“Some old-school Madonna and Beyoncé and everyone in the room went from being eighteen-year-olds to being twelve-year-olds to seven-year-olds and back again, each song belonging to an age they had all shared.”
― Laleh Khadivi, A Good Country

“First love is the erotic at its best and most focused – the adolescent introduction to the complex world of adulthood.”
― J. Earp

“How I could ever establish a relationship with her father, though? His world was logical and mine was a morass of adolescent feelings. On television, we would grab a beer, replace a fan belt, and I would earn his begrudging respect. He might tell me to treat his daughter right while hitting the head of the wrench against his palm. In this world, I stood a better chance of connecting with the fan belt.”
― Thomm Quackenbush, Holidays with Bigfoot

“শান্ত ও চিররুগ্ন এক কিশোর আমি এঁকেবেঁকে চলে যাচ্ছিলাম চারিদিকে। শেষমেশ পড়েছি কবিতার আসল খপ্পরে, দুরারোগ্য স্বপ্নে।
স্বপ্ন অনেক বেশি ক্ষতিকারক। স্বপ্ন কিশোরের পকেট ভরে তুলতে থাকে অসম্ভবের সোনাদানায়, মগজের মধ্যে রুয়ে দিতে থাকে আজগুবি ধরনের লতাপাতা ও ফুল-ফলের চারা, কানের মধ্যে বাজিয়ে চলে পাশের কামরার অন্ধকারের কনুই ও হাঁটুর শব্দ, অজানার গোপন ফিসফাস। স্বপ্ন মেলার মধ্যে নিষিদ্ধ ভিড়ে কানকো ধরে টেনে নিয়ে একদম ফতুর করে ছেড়ে দেয়। ফতুর হয়ে কিশোর ঘুরতে থাকে স্বপ্নের মেলার সুন্দরের আয়োজনের দুয়ারে দুয়ারে। কিন্তু সকল দুয়ারেই সাজানো ঝিলিকমিলিক দৌবারিক। সব দরোজা পাহারাদারদের দখলে। কিশোর দেখে, সুন্দরের সব দরোজায় বসে গেছে টিকিট কাউন্টার। হ্যাজাক জ্বালিয়ে নাভিতে আচমকা লাফিয়ে ওঠে সার্কাসের তাঁবু। কিশোর তার টিকিটবিহীন হৃদয় নিয়ে ঘুরতে থাকে সুন্দরের এক প্রবেশ-পথ থেকে আরেক প্রবেশ পথের দিকে। উঁকি মারে ফতুর কিশোর : একাগ্র, নিঃসঙ্গ ও নির্লিপ্ত।”
― আবিদ আজাদ, কবিতার স্বপ্ন

“It seemed like the only thing to do was to crank the volume of my tape of British music in protest. Even though I was the only one who could hear it, I felt like I was doing something important.”
― Joe Pernice

“He considered himself, and the way he moved in reaction, like a pinball, from one thing to the next, as he was told, as was expected, as made the least friction, and he knew this was the lazy behavior of a scared boy.”
― Laleh Khadivi, A Good Country

“Truth is never in the middle. Truth is where it is! In Freedom!”
― O. Lemniscate

“But things had changed shortly after he turned eleven. He clammed up, got angry, became shifty and secretive. And then suddenly it was like we were speaking entirely different languages. I'd say something and he'd look baffled. Then he'd reply, and it would be my turn to be confused. Being around him became like hosting a foreign exchange student, but without the pleasantries. Or an end date.”
― Anna Downes, The Shadow House

“Terrorist training camps effectively employ fear, violence, and pain in rituals reminiscent of costly adolescent rites of passage.”
― Candace Alcorta, Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Violence

“In fairness, though, no child likes to have his life rearranged from one school year to the next. Change is difficult for anyone, but even more so for an insecure adolescent. At that age, most kids are embarrassed just to be alive. With emotional antennae raised, they are acutely aware of their social standing at all times. Like an air traffic controller monitoring blips on a screen, a teenager is constantly tracking his small place in a big world, asking himself:
Am I accepted by my peers?
Do they like me?
Am I ugly?
How's my hair?
Will I be popular?”
― Jeff Kinley

“This new sense of personal awareness also comes with many added social accessories (batteries included). Adolescent insecurity can be a devastating plague for a youngster, especially ones whose bodies are growing faster than their emotional and social maturity. One misstep can spell disaster from which recovery is next to impossible. Drop your books in the hall once between classes. Trip going up the school steps. Let a facial blemish emerge on the wrong day. Your voice cracks in class while asking a question. Suffer through the accusation of liking someone of the opposite sex. And pray hard that you don't wear the wrong clothes to your first dance. All these near-fatal mishaps can mark you forever in your classmates' eyes, socially branding you with a label that sticks like super-glue throughout your grade-school career. Most adults can recall childhood classmates from their childhood who failed to make the grade socially. Even today, though a former classmate may be a physician, she is still remembered for the time she cried and ran off stage during the school talent show. Or the successful businessman is forever known as the boy who wet his pants and had to go home early from school. We can still name the girl who always sat out during recess games because she was athletically uncoordinated.”
― Jeff Kinley

“As in the "real" world---the adult world---there is a pecking order in a kid's world, as well. It's an unwritten code and pre-existing class system you'll never find recorded in the archives of the school library or indelibly etched into the archway of the administration building. Nonetheless, it is there, perhaps even more real than if it was written down. Those who have mastered its ways achieve a kind of "Jedi-knight" status, and with that comes a certain immunity from it ever "boomeranging" back at them. It's an adolescent adaptation of the old king of the hill game with hundreds continually clamoring toward the top.”
― Jeff Kinley