Anthony Burgess Quotes

One doesn't remain a teenager forever.

But I'm warning you, we're growing up.

Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood.

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

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.

I am a child who is getting on.

When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you.

Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.

Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it's like to be twelve years old.

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.

The characters in the book grow up with us. My voice has broken as well.

There's this coming-of-age thing that's happening within me.

When you are 20 years old, you are immature.

From 15 to 18, everybody is a different person. Every six months, I have a whole new outlook on life.

I mean, 15 - that is such a pivotal time in a young man's life.

The only reason for being young is to outgrow it.

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

One year Halloween came on October 24, three hours after midnight. At that time, James Nightshade of 97 Oak Street was thirteen years, eleven months, twenty-three days old. Next door, William Halloway was thirteen years, eleven months, and twenty-four days old. Both touched toward fourteen; it almost trembled in their hands. And that was the October week when they grew up overnight, and were never so young any more.

I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list.

Four or five years - nothing at all. But no one over thirty could understand this peculiarly weighted and condensed time, from late teens to early twenties, a stretch of life that needed a name, from school leaver to salaried professional, with a university and affairs and death and choices in between. I had forgotten how recent my childhood was, how long and inescapable it once seemed. How grown up and how unchanged I was.

She is nine, beloved, as open-faced as the sky and as self-contained. I have watched her grow. As recently as three or four years ago, she had a young child's perfectly shallow receptiveness; she fitted into the world of time, it fitted into her, as thoughtlessly as sky fits its edges, or a river its banks. But as she has grown, her smile has widened with a touch of fear and her glance has taken on depth. Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here--the extortionary rent you have to pay as long as you stay.

There are children born to be children, and others who must mark time till they can take their natural places as adults.

I kind of grew up and started maturing.

Growing up is scary because it happens without you knowing it.

A boy has two jobs. One is just being a boy. The other is growing up to be a man.