Anna Quindlen Quotes

An adolescent is both an impulsive child and a self-starting adult.

Negotiating the adolescent stage is neither quick nor easy.

Adolescence has been recognised as a stage of human development since medieval times--long, long before the industrial revolution--and, as it is now, has long been seen as a phase which centers on the fusion of sexual and social maturity. Indeed, adolescence as a concept has as long a history as that of puberty, which is sometimes considered more concrete, and hence much easier to name and to recognize.

Adolescence is society's permission slip for combining physical maturity with psychological irresponsibility.

That's why teenagers fascinate me - they're like children with drivers' licenses. Like children in that their impulses are so direct.

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

Prison for the crime of puberty -- that was how secondary school had seemed.

Today's child is growing up absurd, because he lives in two worlds, and neither of them inclines him to grow up. Growing up--thatis our new work, and it is total. Mere instruction will not suffice.

Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years.

It's a little known fact, but parents are like superheroes. With just a few magic words they can make you feel ten feet tall and bulletproof, they can slay the dragons of doubt and worry, they can make your problems disappear. But of course they can only do this as long as you're a child. When you've become an adult, become the master of your own universe, they're not as powerful as they once were. Maybe that's why so many of us take our time growing up.

I remember adolescence, the years of having the impulse control of a mousetrap, of being as private as a safe-deposit box.

I think that the path that I took was normal in the American society where young women and men are not trained as to how to make the transition from being a girl to being a woman, from being a boy to being a man. And so I think that most young people in America live by trial and error, and not by parental instruction, community guidance.

The child from nine to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing.

When I did 'Fast Times,' I felt very close emotionally to the characters. I liked those characters because they all had to work, so they were dealing with adult problems even though they were very immature, and I could relate to that.

Many of the things that I have written on have focused, at least a big part of the story, on adolescents. I think that in that period of life, so much happens, and it's the period of life where you're forming into an adult. In certain ways, you're already an adult and in certain ways you're still a kid.

My brother and I had a lot of freedom growing up, and thankfully, we both turned out OK.

Kids don't shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace.

I think when you're 14 years old, I think you're sort of looking for markers that prove you're an adult and you're independent of your parents.

As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

The problem for me was, I lived my childhood in my 20s. You should really try to live your childhood when you're a child, because if you do it when you're 26, it can be dangerous.

Being a grownup means assuming responsibility for yourself, for your children, and - here's the big curve - for your parents.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

I thought of myself as an adult trapped in a kid's body. Had I known what adulthood was like, I would have embraced childhood a little more.

You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going.