Jonathan Lethem Quotes

Adolescence can be a time of turmoil and turbulence, of stress and storm. Rebellion against authority and against convention is to be expected and tolerated for the sake of learning and growth.

Teenagers are like atoms when they're moving at hundreds of miles an hour and bouncing off each other. Everybody's got such a crazy hormonal drive and reacting to each other differently and getting upset over little things. High school puts all these potential explosions in one place.

The most important role models should and could be parents and teachers. But that said, once you're a teenager you've probably gotten as much of an example from your parents as you're going to.

I remember in seventh grade we used to wear lipstick to school, and the teachers would get so angry, and they'd steal our lipstick if we had them.

I have an equal amount of patience as my grade-school children, which is not great.

At 12 I dropped out of school but I had lost interest in it at a much earlier age. For me, school was very very stressful.

Most teachers prefer to teach highly motivated kids who live in safe communities.

My sleep pattern got disrupted around the time I was taking my O-levels, but in those days nobody really addressed things like that in children.

I feel like there is a lot of inherent humor in the stress and insanity surrounding that process. People lose their minds, trying to prove their parental worth by getting their children into one of five colleges; when there are thousands of good colleges across the United States - and elsewhere.

Adolescence is like cactus.

With the exception of the few cases to be discussed in the next chapter, adolescence represented no period of crisis or stress, but was instead an orderly developing of a set of slowly maturing interests and activities.

Most naughtiness arises because the children are bored and lack a relationship with the teacher.

This was middle school, the age of miracles, the time when kids shot up three inches over the summer, when breasts bloomed from nothing, when voices dipped and dove. Our first flaws were emerging, but they were being corrected. Blurry vision could be fixed invisibly with the magic of the contact lens. Crooked teeth were pulled straight with braces. Spotty skin could be chemically cleared. Some girls were turning beautiful. A few boys were growing tall.

If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our school to protect our children, then call me crazy.

The ripeness of adolescence is prodigal in pleasures, skittish, and in need of a bridle.

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

Yet, instead of loving our children more, we install metal detectors in our schools.

However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure. That is the most unbecoming thing there is. It makes the noses of the young girls so particularly large.

Parental trust is extremely important in the guidance of adolescent children as they get further and further away from the direct supervision of their parents and teachers. I don't mean that trust without clear guidance is enough, but guidance without trust is worthless.

It may comfort you to know that if your child reaches the age of eleven or twelve and you have a good bond or relationship, no matter how dramatic adolescence becomes, you children will probably turn out all right and want some form of connection to you in adulthood.

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.

Does sex education encourage sex? Many parents are afraid that talking about sex with their teenagers will be taken as permission for the teen to have sex. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the more children learn abour sexuality from talking with their parents and teachers and reading accurate books, the less they feel compelled to find out for themselves.

The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.

I was fortunate to be at that school in an era in which encounters between students and teachers were encouraged; there were a number of teachers who lived on campus, and they'd regularly invite students over for dinner on the weekends. I hope it's still like that: being treated seriously by an adult you admire is a great gift. Children, like adults, want respect - but it's only when you're older that you realize how few people actually extend it.