Charlize Theron Quotes

I always thought that at the very time of your life when you want to be cool and sexy and fascinating, you are none of those things. You are a hormonal muddle in your school uniform sitting in double science looking at a boy who you know will never notice you. That was definitely me; I was so shy at school.

Childhood can be hell. One reason … is that as a child you have no power.

My middle school experience was pretty hellish. There was a lot of negativity, a lot of bullying and a lot of insecurity. It was the reason I ended up going to my arts high school because I was pretty bullied.

I felt alienated at school, and I never did well with girls.

My childhood was really comfortable and secure, but school was a nightmare. I was a lot taller than the other girls and they called me Gitte the giraffe.

Who has the best features? This was a little game, conducted several times and always with the same results, in seventh grade, the time when so many of life's little horrors begin.

I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17. There were boys at school that I would find out later had a crush on me but I was too shy to talk to them.

I go to third grade, and I'm scared to death. I'm just 6 years old, and the kids are so much bigger than me.

Everybody either wanted to take care of me or push me around, you know? I was teased a lot, sure I was, of course. Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, everybody was taking their spurts except me. I was not growing up.

I used to have acne when I was a kid growing up. You can imagine how serious that was in making you feel bad. And I had skinny bow legs. I mean, as a kid growing up, I was an insecure fella.

When I was growing up, particularly during puberty in my teen years, I was so miserable because I elicited so much teasing and meanness from my teenage cohorts.

It's true, I had an extremely delicious life, but that was my life at home, and perhaps because I was only a child, or for whatever reasons, I found the company of others, especially other boys, quite terrifying and upsetting.

I think Pete did have a hard time as a kid with his appearance. But don't all kids have a hard time? God, I had a hard time, too. I was little with bow legs and rickets. I used to get picked on like everybody used to get picked on.

I was a quiet teenager, introverted, full of angst.

Puberty was not kind to me. I had acne, eczema and had a stye in my eye, so it was quite hard to go in to somewhere where the majority were boys. At that age, they were quite vocal about what they thought of your looks.

I got teased my entire school life. What they were picking on I don't even understand.

I went to a really diverse and wonderful school in inner-city Pittsburgh, where all the various groups and types of people got along pretty great, and a lot of interesting stuff was going on all the time - and I still hated high school. It's just a rough, rough period in one's life.

I went through a phase when I was 13 or 14: I would tweet emo things about my feelings and boys who didn't like me and mean girls in school.

I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with.

And I could see this boy doing his homework and thinking about my sister naked. And I could see them holding hands at football games that they do not watch. And I could see this boy throwing up in the bushes at a party house. And I could see my sister putting up with it. And I felt very bad for both of them.

When you're starving or wrapped up in a cycle of binge-ing-and-purging, or sexually obsessed with (someone), it is very hard to think about anything else, very hard to see the larger picture of options that is your life, very hard to consider what else you might need or want or fear were you not so intently focused on one crushing passion. I sat in my room every night, with rare exceptions, for three and a half years.

I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession with undertones of nausea.

I'd never even seen orange cheese. I mean, who decided to make that orange? And so there was something different about me that they wanted to crush. I don't think it had anything to do with my physicality, but every single day in school it was, "You're the ugliest thing I've ever seen."

Every day I hold my breath until I see her. Sometimes in class, sometimes in the hallway. I can't start breathing until I see her smile at me. She always does, but the next day I'm always afraid she won't. At lunch I'm afraid she'll smile more at BT than at me. I'm afraid she'll look at him in some way that she doesn't look at me. I'm afraid that when I go to bed at night I'll still be wondering. I'm always afraid. Is that what love is - fear?

She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.