Quotes About Youth

It is so much easier to try to help a six-month-old child or a six-year-old child than it is a 16-year-old troubled kid.

I'm really troubled by the prevalence of single-sport specializations. I want my kids to do as many things for as long as they can. Specialization is a natural thing that should come later - it shouldn't come for 8-year-olds.

I have a fondness for writing about precocious, troubled teenagers, who are alienating, but kind of endearing. It's from remembering so clearly that time in my own life. I experienced myself as more dramatically troubled than I was, but I just remember how it felt.

I've had a pretty chequered past, you know, as a kid, as a troubled kid.

My parents actively tried to discourage me from going into music - especially Dad, because of the troubled times he had in his youth.

I loved being a troublemaker. At Santa Monica High, I would smoke on campus, go barefoot, anything.

Oh, I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that. I was a little bit introspective, a little bit morbid. I was small for my age, so I was bullied and that kind of stuff.

Honestly, I was a troublemaker. The environment I grew up in, my mom and my sister, they decided they were going to sign me up in every single thing to keep me busy. I played football, basketball, baseball. Anything, whatever was in season, I was signed up for it. Basketball was one of the things that just stuck.

I was a pretty free-spirited kid. I was part of a notorious group of troublemakers who didn't do well in school but had a great time exploring Beijing from the inside out.

One of the most startling events in my life was when my older son was about 16, and he blamed me for all the troubles of the world. So I, I felt like telling him, 'Oh no, I was just like you when I was your age; I wanted to change the world, too.'

In 'A Room With a View,' you have three young Englishmen running around naked and laughing and whooping and jumping in the water. It's something the English don't apparently find troublesome.

No 13-year-old or over should ever be seen in trousers that finish above the ankle. It doesn't matter how good your legs are, or if you're on a beach in Bermuda where they invented the things.

I had this maroon 'Lion King' tracksuit that my mum couldn't take off me. I wore it until the sleeves ended at my elbows and the trousers ended at my knees.

I grew up wearing trousers and climbing trees.

The hit rap duo Kris Kross wore their trousers backwards, in the Nineties, and I wore my trousers backwards to a school disco. It led to some bullying.

I left the school sixth form after the first day because they wouldn't let me wear jeans and I couldn't go home and ask for money for trousers.

I could have my hair really short. I didn't have to wear dresses, I could wear baggy old T-shirts and ripped trousers and monkey boots and I was desirable to boys that were into the same stuff.

Growing up, I'd just be at home, playing tennis, spending my allowance on an ice-cream truck.

I used sit in the back of the truck and make up these songs and play at the tailgates at rodeos.

In the '50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay - it didn't feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me.

Growing up, I remember thinking country music was all honky-tonks and beer and trucks - Britney Spears was my first concert.

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I'm with friends is having a good time. I can't bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don't seem to be able to get any closer, and that's the problem.

My passion, personally, is being my true self while inspiring young people who are struggling with their identities to love themselves for who they are.

You know, 'Top Gun' was the movie I saw in high school that made me want to be a filmmaker. I remember very specifically coming out of the Century 21 Theater in Colorado from seeing it, and my friend saying, 'What did you think of the movie?' And I said, 'I think I know what I want to do for a living.' That's a true story.