Joyce Maynard Quotes

When you're a little girl, you kind of gravitate towards all of the princesses and things.

I liked the girly cartoons. I was very much a girly-girl.

And also I think particularly as a female, you're taught to be defensive your whole life. You're taught not to be aggressive.

I was 13 and at summer camp when I had my first kiss.

I love being around kids; they're honest and refreshing, and I love teaching them new things.

As a girl, you're supposed to love Sleeping Beauty. I mean, who wants to love Sleeping Beauty when you can be Aladdin?

I grew up with three older brothers, so I'm very much a tomboy in real life.

You don't have to choose between June Cleaver or Barbara Walters. There are miles of space between them.

As women, we get the message about how to be a good girl - how to be a good, pretty girl - from such an early age. Then, at the same time, we're told that well-behaved girls won't change the world or ever make a splash.

There were many things in my childhood I sacrificed: I started travelling quite young, compromising school in terms of learning and time with friends doing normal stuff as a kid you want to do. But obviously I wouldn't change a day.

I was always a tomboy as a kid. I always had boyfriends. I was just a regular girl growing up in the late '50s and early '60s, but I was never really attracted to what the girls were attracted to: makeup, my appearance, homemaking.

I remember hearing once that good girls don't get caught. I think that's sort of a lot of what my teen years were like.

There is a certain expectation of girls to eventually grow up and behave and fall in line. I've always bucked against that.

As I look back, I have to say growing up was fun, not a problem at all.

I had no interest in people telling me to be feminine, to be ladylike, to wear dresses - it just made me rebel completely.

From childhood to adolescence, girls face mixed messages about displaying power and authority.

Just like any other girl, I felt pressure to look a certain way. Act a certain way.

There's a great deal of tension between so many kind of distinctive and restrictive female archetypes and images in the world. When you play with the archetypes, you get free.

When we grow up, we tend to forget our first crush, first love, as we move along. Only when you see something on TV or hear someone say something do you go back to those moments.

As a woman, this is one of these areas where you have to walk a fine line: the classic, 'Are you soft and squishy, and you hug everybody, and you're a cheerleader?' versus, 'Are you the hard-nosed you-know-what female dog?'

Everyone thinks you have to grow up to know who you are, but kids already know who we are. The world just beats it out of us.

Growing up in America, even in the rougher parts of Elizabeth, I had two nice playgrounds to choose from as a child.

I was never good at being a boy, but I was always a good student.

I was brought up as a normal kid.

As a kid you can sense fear, love happiness very easily.