Sherwood Anderson Quotes

I think there is a point in every teenager's life where they are forced to come into themselves.

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

I always think that I’m still this 13-year old boy that doesn’t really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I’ll really have to do it.

A boy has two jobs. One is just being a boy. The other is growing up to be a man.

Many of the things that I have written on have focused, at least a big part of the story, on adolescents. I think that in that period of life, so much happens, and it's the period of life where you're forming into an adult. In certain ways, you're already an adult and in certain ways you're still a kid.

Nobody understands anyone 18, including those who are 18.

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.

When you are seventeen you aren't really serious.

People forget that when you're 16, you're probably more serious than you'll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

I think I've been lucky enough to have had an extended adolescence. I'm a lot like I was when I was 15.

It changed me more than anything else. You don't want to get to that place where you're the adult and you're palpably in the next generation. And, this shoved me into that.

I really like coming-of-age dramas. It's probably the most intense period in anyone's life, those years before you become an adult. Dramatically, there's so much to explore there. And it's nice to be around young talent coming through.

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

It's tough to be 12. You're not quite a man, but you think you are.

I don't think I've grown up easily.

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.

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

It's fun to be almost grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big words.

It's really something for people who are approaching 30 to take a look at what that means to them. I think turning 30 is a chance to re-identify with yourself.

The thing about adolescence is that you are emerging from a state of obscurity. You are coming out into the world from your family. Your family can seem normal because it is your family and all you know, but in fact it is a mess.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

Kids don't shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace.

I know that I'm inadequate, but I never thought that at seventeen. I thought I was doing the best I could. I thought I was being idealistic.

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.

I think when you're 14 years old, I think you're sort of looking for markers that prove you're an adult and you're independent of your parents.