Claire Messud Quotes

In 1792, my Sister told me, I was growing out of my senses.

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.

One of my first paid gigs was writing psychology quizzes for 'YM,' a monthly teen magazine like 'Seventeen.'

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

Early youth is a baffling time.

In your teens, you get the physical puberty, and between 28 and 32, mental puberty. It does make you feel differently.

Puberty extends into your twenties, for sure, and some people don't get over that until much later in life. I feel like I'm just starting to get over puberty - basically twenty years of insufferable, totally self-obsessed hell.

I'd rather see what young people are going through than see things explode.

I think high school's very difficult. You're figuring out your own power and your effect on other people. You look back and see how you spent so much energy on figuring out things with your parents or your peers.

When children are very young, you read them books that are positive to help them go to sleep. But there comes a moment when they begin to understand the difficulties of the world. They know there are problems and the books they read should reflect that, not gloss over them.

Watching kids go from the age of 9 and 10 to 13 is a big, huge jump. The way they speak, their looks, their attitudes, everything changes as you go from being a little kid to a teenager.

In addition to exploring imaginative worlds, I believe that young people should have access to reading material that validates their life, that gives them a sense of identity - to be able to read texts that chimes with their own world, corrals thoughts, and connects with the emotional conflicts of growing up.

I have seen bright young people all over this country in an ocean surrounded by the sharks of drugs, alcohol, violence, homicide, suicide, AIDS and teenage pregnancy while we argue over whose values we are going to teach.

Anyone who's been a teenager, or raised one, knows growing up is hard. Kids can be cruel to their peers, and many young people go through tough times and experience low moments.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you're in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life - you write about the mindset you're in at that moment.

What adolescence is about is by trial and error, honing a frontal cortex that is going to be more optimal by the time you're 25.

We hope the stories of the 14 kids in 'American High' provide something for many people to relate to.

A lot of the turning points happen in high school and in college, and it defines a lot of how you see the world and how you decide to defend yourself from the world. Some people - their defense mechanism is, I'm really smart or I'm sexy or I'm the leader. And other people - they hide or they make jokes.

Just being young and growing up in this business is hard. Just growing up in general is hard.

We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.

You never know what's going on in somebody's mind. There's a lot of pressure on someone growing up. You have to watch it.

As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like.

Adolescence is the period of the decisive last battle fought before maturity. The ego must achieve independence, the old emotional ties must be cast off, the new ones created.

God bless you young women and young men who struggle through the worrisome teenage years. Some of you may not yet have found yourselves, but you are not lost, for Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer.

To produce that identity among young people required guinea pigs.