Amy Heckerling Quotes

The coming-of-age story has sort of become a joke. It's something to capitalize on, and that is painful because when you are coming of age - when you are going through something like that - the genre is so meaningful.

There's so many great coming-of-age movies to steal from, and I feel like I just tried to steal from them all equally.

I was a 'young adult' when I wrote 'The Outsiders,' although it was not a genre at the time. It's an interesting time of life to write about, when your ideals get slammed up against reality, and you must compromise.

I think that the beauty of 'Spud' is that everyone can connect to the character of Spud in so many ways. It's about real experiences that happen to kids all the time.

When I did a study of all the coming-of-age movies that meant a lot to me, whether it was 'The Graduate' or 'Rebel Without a Cause' or 'Dead Poet's Society,' they all had that timeless feel. None of them were completely married to the details of their age. They felt timeless in their treatment of it. That's what made them resonate with me.

I wouldn't say I'm stuck in my adolescence, but I think, like a lot of people, I carry my teen years with me. I feel really in touch with those feelings, and how intense and complicated life seems in those years.

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

'Carrie Diaries' was one of the scripts that was sent my way, and it was instantly something I wanted to work on. It was very charming, and there's a lot of heart to it. It was touching and nostalgic and relatable, and it validates so many coming-of-age issues in an open and honest way. I think it speaks to real life.

I designed 'Buffy' to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can't be loved. Because it's about adolescence, which is the most important thing people go through in their development, becoming an adult.

I grew up very fast as a young girl, but I grew slowly into my womanhood.

There aren't a lot of films about adolescents or quote-unquote coming-of-age films that are realistic nowadays.

Peter Parker's storyline hits every key point of growing up.

For 'Prom,' if I had missed high school, I don't think it would come off as real.

I read Jilly Cooper when I was on the verge of just growing up and I was becoming a woman.

We all have to go through our own experiences of growing up.

For me, there's a deeper genre appreciation for what a coming of age story can be about. To apply that to a superhero world, for me, that was very exciting.

Coming-of-age stories, people roll their eyes.

Growing up is hard, love. Otherwise everyone would do it.

It's [high school] an interesting time in your life because you're trying to act older and mature but you really have no idea what you're doing. You're scared and it's okay to be scared. It's okay to not know completely what you want or what you should be doing and to stumble a little bit.

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.

When you are in your teenage years you are consciously experiencing everything for the first time, so adolescent stories are all beginnings. There are never any endings.

We're naturally programmed to endure a muddle of emotions as we leave childhood behind.

A flapper is just a little girl trying to grow up - in the process of growing up.

I see Igby as my first movie as an adult, and it's a big deal for me because I really, really like the film.

Adolescence, that swampy zone between safety and power, is best patrolled by adults armed with sense and mercy, not guns and a badge.