Betty Smith Quotes

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.

I find the subject of childhood fascinating. I explored this subject in Speak to me of love and I am curious about portraying the often painful transition into the adult world.

Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood.

In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it.

Adolescence is a modern construct and very American in so many ways.

I wasn't a child at 13, were you?

You get 12 years of childhood, give or take.

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.

I think that at 21, I still look like I'm 17 years old, so I feel like I'm going to be playing teenagers for a while, and that's a very relatable stage in a teenage life for a female - that kind of rambunctious stage.

What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?

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

It's a bit different when you're 16 as to when you're 20. You're a little bit more developed and mature in your body.

I think when you are 17 you are very innocent.

I don't think naturally I tend toward anything that's really distinctly branded as adult. I feel like I sort of write for myself as I would've been at 12 or 13 years old.

That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain.

You know...it's a hard age. Kids are in that stage where they're beginning to understand the world of adults, without having the maturity of adults to deal with everything going on around them.

Do any men grow up or do they only come of age?

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

What is the use of being a little boy if you are growing up to be a man.

I wanted the Andy of Toy Story 3 to be right on the cusp, straddling childhood and adulthood ... I wanted to find this sweet spot where he had gotten tall and had clearly grown up but still retained many boyish qualities, including a boyish charm.

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.

One doesn't remain a teenager forever.

Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.

Growing up is a ritual, more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.