Alex Higgins Quotes

We all remember growing up with mean girls, right?

I heard the various terms of abuse at school and probably indulged them in the way you do as a kid.

The only thing I learnt in high school is that people are very violent and territorial.

The harassment and the bullying that students face is a learned behavior.

I was a very anxious kid. I was bullied at primary school and responded by making myself as anonymous as possible at secondary school.

The older kids, if they wanted something from you, whether it was cash or sports equipment, they would just take it. My older brothers used to say, 'If someone tries to take something from you, never give it to them.' So we fought all the time.

I've gone from being bullied by jocks as a kid to being bullied by nerds as an adult.

I went to a girls' school, and it was awful. The combination of my teenage anger and their jealousy meant I was always getting into fights. There was a lot of pulling of hair and scratching of faces and rolling around on the floor.

Kids are really cruel.

It was endlessly entertaining, watching people beat each other up. All the little kids in the neighborhood would come and watch... and then we'd beat them up as well.

I went to a mixed school and I can't remember being bullied at school, ever. I was quite large, in those days. Usually, if you're going to be a bully, you'll pick on someone who is small. I didn't bully anybody, and I don't remember being bullied.

Kids are pretty brutal.

I certainly went to high school with some mean girls, and I would not wish that hell on anybody.

Kids used to tease me unmercifully about that name.

Kids are very cruel to each other.

I'd spent seven years in an all-boys school: 2,000 adolescents in the same khaki uniforms striking hunting poses, stalking lunchrooms, classrooms, changing rooms, looking for boys who didn't fit in.

When you get a group of kids together, especially boys, the psychology of those kids requires that they find a weak kid or a sensitive kid or a soft kid.

As I got into middle school, I was really an outcast. But everybody was an outcast in middle school. I don't know who got the idea to put all kids going through puberty together in a school and give them academic elitism and competition and pit them against each other.

I grew up in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of fighting. It's what boys did during school, during recess, after school. And I was a fairly large kid. So everyone wanted to see if they could take me on.

Nobody is taking my lunch money.

By the time I was in high school, I was big enough to beat the hell out of everybody who said anything to me. And I learned how to blend in. All of that made me a very confident man. A very aggressive man. I developed it to survive.

A boy on the team, who shall remain nameless, constantly picked on me during practice. I bided my time, and when I had the chance to wrestle him, I took every advantage I could. I bent fingers, dug my nails into his skin and rammed my elbow into various, tender, parts of him. I basically beat him down in front of the whole team.

Harassment is one of puberty's darkest, most unreported rites of passage.

I was on a basketball team as a kid, and there were two twins who were a little older and a little bigger than I was, and there was some bullying going on there.

For me, it was always survival. Learn where not to be at so you don't get shot. Learn where not to walk at so you don't get jumped. Learn who to stand up to, who not to stand up to. And then, when I got old enough to get a chip on my shoulder, I wanted to be the dog. I wanted to be the alpha.