Ted Dekker Quotes

Looking back, I realise I had to grow up and be responsible at a very tender age.

Kenya, being a third world country, from a young age your eyes are open to the real world. I'd like to think growing up there taught me to stand on my own two feet, make my own decisions about what I wanted to be.

I grew up pretty fast. I had more responsibility than most 9-year-olds, and I've always been independent.

I didn't lead a very wise life, myself, but it was a full one and a grown-up one. You come of age very quickly through shipwreck and disaster.

At a young age, I had to give up a lot of things, like being able to hang out with my friends.

I went through big things at too young of an age, but, naturally, when you're young you're also adventurous.

I had to believe in myself from quite a young age. And I had to grow up pretty early.

I had to grow up very quickly.

It definitely toughens you up. It makes you mature from a young age, living away from home.

I've experienced a lot for someone my age that a lot of people will be able to relate to.

I think men, growing up, you have to go through some form of hardship. You've got to harden the metal.

I have to thank my mum for kicking me out at 16 and making me stand on my own two feet - that's how I got here.

When you're eight years old nothing is your business.

My advice would be not to write until after 35. You need some experience, and for life to knock you about a bit. Growing up is so hard you probably won't have much emotion to spare anyway.

My childhood had its challenges, like everyone's. It imbued me with certain things and took away others. It made me very determined.

I have a real no-nonsense dad who taught me how to be resilient at a very young age.

Being the only man in the household with my mom definitely helped me grow up fast.

I never really wanted to grow up. I grew up really young. I moved out when I was 13 - that's when I started acting.

When I was a kid, I had to fight for everything.

My mother felt it was time that I had some parental control, so I went off to America and went to New York.

The myth that young people should leave the nest at 18, never to return, started with iconic American Benjamin Franklin.

You get too old to lose. When you were a young guy, you bounced back from losses.

We're so preoccupied with protecting children from disappointment and discomfort that we're inadvertently excusing them from growing up.

I think some of my best theatre training has been in the Marine Corps. Not only meeting a bunch of characters, but growing up. You're in really adult situations at a young age, as far as being in charge of people.

We've all recognized the moment when the world has handed us a situation that is bigger than our youth can handle, and we have to grow up in a second. And when you do get to the other side, all it does is take us to this new level of existence that is more beautiful and more complex and, in some ways, more painful.