Matthew Tobin Anderson Quotes

You may think me crude, and probably I am crude, but I am not so crude as I was, for I am clever enough to see that the girl of nineteen who thought herself a genius was only an unusual girl writing her heart out.

People think, because we're young, we aren't complex, but that's not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.

My family used to call me an oversized kid and I think that's pretty accurate in some ways.

I was a very self-righteous 15-25 year old. Anyway, I wake up every morning and thank God I'm not a kid anymore.

When we're 16, we have lots of heavy thoughts. And these are the heavy thoughts, where, when we're in our 30s, we look at 16-year olds and sort of scorn it.

It's interesting how things you hear as a kid take on a whole new meaning when you are an adult.

Of course you do things differently in your 30s and 40s than in your 20s.

I think, you know, when you're a teenager, sometimes your emotions are a little bit more drastic than maybe when you're in your 20s. You sort of level out a little bit.

I know you think that when you're 35, 45, 55, you'll be different. But I'm going to let you in on a bit of a secret. You're going to look different, and your life is going to be different, but in your head you'll always be that 16-year-old girl.

I certainly could've gone off track many, many times in my youth.

If I saw my 15-year-old self now, I'd think I wasn't that bad, but back then I perceived myself as awful.

Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up.

I'm not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

Some days, you feel like a 22-year-old and some days you feel like a 40-year-old.

Oh the innocent girl in her maiden teens knows perfectly well what everything means.

I always imagined that magically, at some point, I would settle into this very easy and refined sophistication, but it turns out that who you are at eleven is pretty much who you are at 27, so I don't know how much I've learned over the years.

Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it's like to be twelve years old.

In certain ways, I'm not very different than I was when I was a teenager.

I'm not changing to the point where suddenly I wear floor-length skirts and start playing the violin; I'm just growing up a little bit, I guess.

In middle school, we are all so damn insecure. It was the worst time for me, really destructive, like slapping myself across the face but loving it. Now I have to be an adult and change myself. I have to be a bigger person.

I see a wiser person than when I was younger: having babies, and passing 30, were the turning points. What women in their 40s - I am 39 - lack in gorgeousness, they make up for in wisdom. I love ageing, despite the drawbacks - thinner, drier skin.

Get this in mind early: We never grow up.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

I think obviously there's a core of who you are, and as you get older, you become more aware of what behavior is immutable. For a long time, I felt there was a deep separation between the person I was as a teenager and the person I was in my 20s and early 30s .