Quotes About Adolescence

I think, for many teens, a fundamental fact of the teenage experience is that you're in between this childlike state, in which you're told you're completely unqualified for just about anything in the adult world, and this adult world, where you're being told you have to be responsible, and you're just trying to figure out where you stand.

I experienced unrequited love early.

Around 10, I got chubby. I knew I'd crossed a line when the only pants that fit were from the 'Junior Plenty' line at JC Penny. My parents had split up, my mom was going through a dark time, and my brother and I were getting bullied in our new neighborhood. Life was big and unsafe.

My mom was very disappointed when I came out as a Republican in high school. And being a Republican in high school was really fun because all of my teachers were extremely liberal. Expressing anything that was counter to their deeply held beliefs was so easily unsettling that that form of contrarianism was very comfortable.

Teen movies often have an unspoken underlying premise in which high school is seen as less serious than the adult world. But when your head is encased in that microcosm it's the most serious time of your life.

When I was going through puberty, I had all these feelings of being unstable through those years, and being uncontrollably drawn to things of beauty and things that are bad.

High school was hard for me. I tried really hard to fit in and said the things I thought people wanted to hear. But I was unsure of myself. I was self-conscious, and I didn't really know my place or where I fit in.

I related to 'Sierra' in the fact that I tend to come off as pretty confident in who I am, but definitely in high school I had a lot of insecurity and was unsure if I should be changing myself to fit in more.

I've been writing songs since I was a teenager, so one kind of song I've written a lot is about, I don't know, teen angst feelings - feeling unsure of yourself and immature.

I spent all of my teenage years shoving sugar down my neck. And it didn't catch up with me until I was about 21 and my skin started getting really bad and my metabolism slowed down.

I just don't feel like I've seen very many movies about 17-year-old girls where the question is not, 'Will she find the right guy' or 'Will he find her?' The question should be, 'Is she going to occupy her personhood?' Because I think we're very unused to seeing female characters, particularly young female characters, as people.

Certainty regarding your career aged 15 is very unusual.

I don't think everyone is equally haunted by high school, but I also don't think it's unusual to be.

I have a brother and we lost our father when I was 15. And that was a big emotional upheaval in my life.

I couldn't wait to grow a mustache. I stopped shaving my upper lip the day I graduated from high school.

'Uprising' was one of the first three or four albums I ever bought in 1980 when I was 13, and that had a strong impact on me.

When I went through puberty I had a huge rebellion against movies. I was so upset with how they brainwashed me that I didn't watch movies for years.

Being a teenager, I would think they were real strict, and I would get upset, but I'm glad they were like that. They didn't let us do whatever we wanted. We weren't allowed to date until we were, like, juniors in high school.

I thought at the time of my parents' divorce that I was upset by deeper, more profound things and I was just taking it out on the joint custody agreement. But that disruption was bad enough. That was a huge deal for a teenager.

I remember specifically, for me, as a kid growing up or as a young teenager, if I ever cried or got upset in front of anybody, I would be so humiliated.

There's nothing set in stone - some people perceive it as Will could be gay, asexual or whatever. Or, like how I see it, he was stuck in the Upside Down, and he was away for so long that all of his friends started growing up while he was in this other world.

If you had looked at my life when I was 14 years old and said, 'Well, what's going to happen to this kid?' you would have concluded that I would have struggled with what academics call upward mobility.

I found 'Bordertown' when I was standing on the border between childhood and my teens, and it carried me past that transition. In the process, it helped to create the next step of its own evolution: the modern urban fantasy owes a lot more to 'Bordertown' than many people will ever know.

Children who have been in work for a long time suddenly get a thud down to earth once the cuteness fades, hips widen, voices drop and jawlines strengthen.