Mary Pipher Quotes

Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood.

What laughter is to childhood, sex is to adolescence.

When I was five years old, I told my parents that I wanted to take ballet. So, ballet was the focus of my life... until puberty. Then I discovered boys and started dating a guy with a mohawk who'd come to my ballet class and freak everybody out. Shortly after that is when I quit.

I find myself drawn to that period where children are about to leave childhood behind. When you're 12 years old, you still have one foot in childhood; the other is poised to enter a completely new stage of life.

Adolescence is like cactus.

Adolescence is that time when I think, it can be- it's the cruelest place on Earth. It can really be heartless.

Adolescence isn't a period; it's a coma.

Middle-aged adolescents are a libel on the real thing.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.

Most mothers worry when their daughters reach adolescence but I was the opposite. I relaxed, I sighed with relief. Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.

One doesn't remain a teenager forever.

Growing up is a ritual, more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.

Adolescence begins when children stop asking questions-because they know all the answers.

I remember my friends and I looking forward to puberty because it seemed exciting at first.

I have a 14 year old daughter now. You know, it was that time in these kids lives when these girls are becoming women and the hormones are raging. They didn't know if The Beatles were any good, they just went for it 'cause The Beatles were attractive.

What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness.

'Middle school' is used as shorthand for a time when things change. It's a time a lot of kids feel like they don't even have one good friend.

Early youth is a baffling time.

Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable of being adults.

Once you get over that peak of puberty, you hit a nice stride.

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.

On her daughter: And she's going through all these changes. You know, it's just crazy times.

I was approaching adolescence. For some reason, I guess my mother thought it would be less crazy out in the suburbs, which it wasn't. I just think adolescence is hard for anyone.

Negotiating the adolescent stage is neither quick nor easy.

I used to be a child. It came naturally to me. I was an adult for a time, too. That came less naturally.