James St. James Quotes

For me, the teen years were all about searching for a place for myself, wondering why I seemed so different than everyone else, wondering especially why no one could look past the surface and figure out who I really was underneath.

Growing up, I just wanted to be like everyone else. I didn't value or understand the beauty in being different at the time in my life.

I was a very unconfident teenager. I wanted desperately to fit in.

I am very tall, and when you're a teenager, you want to be like everyone else. I used to slump a lot; it's very human at that stage to want to be part of the crowd and not want any part of you that is sticking out.

My hair was always frizzy. I always wanted to be blonde with lovely straight hair. I was very skinny. I was quite tomboyish, just very quiet. I always wanted to fit in; I just couldn't.

It's so easy as a teen to feel like everybody is having this normal experience - except you. You're on the outside.

Being myself didn't work. Being someone else didn't work. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have friends.

Let's face it. No kid in high school feels as though they fit in.

I just wanted to fit in as a teenager, but it was hopeless.

I always tried so hard to fit in, and then I figured out that I didn't want to fit.

I was a very, very shy, insecure teenager.

As a teenage girl myself, I've gone through times in my life where I've felt insecure about who I am and have tried so hard to fit in with everyone else.

The essential problems remain the same... The kids I write about are asking for the same things I wanted. They want two contradictory things. They want to be the same as everyone else, and they want to be different from everyone else. They want acceptance for both.

When I was young, I had this feeling that there was this handbook that I had never gotten that explained how to be, how to laugh, what to wear, how to stand by yourself in the hallway. Everyone looked so natural - like they all practiced and knew exactly what to do - even the way they pushed their hair out of their face.

I was embarrassed about modeling. When you're at school and you're modeling, it sounds very glamorous, but I didn't want to do things that no one else was doing. I didn't want to be the odd one out. I wanted to be part of the gang.

I was at an all-girls' school, so there were a lot of us who were really awkward. I was this tall when I was 11, so I was really awkward and self-conscious. No one would really have wanted to be mean to me. I was too unimportant.

Don't let that nagging fear - that feeling that being different automatically qualifies you as being wrong - eat away at you.

High school was a complicated, confusing time for me. I wasn't confident, didn't know who I was, and was hiding from myself a lot.

When I was a teenager, I was super-awkward. I don't think I really felt comfortable in my body or with how I looked, and people were nasty.

At school, I felt out of place. I was bullied. I would think, 'These kids don't like me, they don't accept me,' but I felt like in the entertainment industry, I would fit in.

People thought I looked weird, that I talked weird.

I never felt comfortable in my own skin, and I feel like I missed out on a lot of high school experiences because I was so worried about where I fit in because I was so confused.

I definitely spent a lot of high school isolating myself because I didn't feel like I fit in. I learned how to be funny.

I remember in middle school and high school being so concerned with what everybody else thought. I was trying to be someone I wasn't. I wish I could've just let it slide and not cared about it.

It took me a long time to blossom. Everyone else understood how to socialize and how to look. I didn't get the memo.