Thomas Szasz Quotes

By puberty I learned that nothing worth having could be easily attained and to succeed one must be single minded.

With the exception of the few cases to be discussed in the next chapter, adolescence represented no period of crisis or stress, but was instead an orderly developing of a set of slowly maturing interests and activities.

A lot of teenagers, when they're in the business, they want to rebel, because they've been so tied up and stuff. I'm not too tied up. I like to have fun. I just don't see myself getting out of control.

Adolescence is a tough time for parent and child alike. It is a time between: between childhood and maturity, between parental protection and personal responsibility, between life stage- managed by grown-ups and life privately held.

Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.

I love being a teen because you don't have all the responsibilities of an adult yet.

When I was 18, I was working at Luton airport and spending all my money on going out and buying tops. I had no fears, no responsibilities.

I never wanted to grow up. It really is a trap.

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.

Someone once remarked that in adolescence pornography is a substitute for sex, whereas in adulthood sex is a substitute for pornography.

On her daughter: And she's going through all these changes. You know, it's just crazy times.

Other people have suggested that I write about teens because I'm perpetually stuck in that stage of my own development. That could very well be true. I would throw out that teens and tweens are just absolutely fabulous and the most interesting people on the planet. And it is a time of high drama, and everything matters.

I was approaching adolescence. For some reason, I guess my mother thought it would be less crazy out in the suburbs, which it wasn't. I just think adolescence is hard for anyone.

Negotiating the adolescent stage is neither quick nor easy.

Prison for the crime of puberty -- that was how secondary school had seemed.

Most mothers worry when their daughters reach adolescence but I was the opposite. I relaxed, I sighed with relief. Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.

An adolescent is both an impulsive child and a self-starting adult.

I was 13 and a teenager, as well. When you're that age, you want to be an adult, in a way, but you don't want to have the responsibilities of an adult. You still want to have the freedom.

Adolescence has been recognised as a stage of human development since medieval times--long, long before the industrial revolution--and, as it is now, has long been seen as a phase which centers on the fusion of sexual and social maturity. Indeed, adolescence as a concept has as long a history as that of puberty, which is sometimes considered more concrete, and hence much easier to name and to recognize.

At fourteen you don't need sickness or death for tragedy.

One thing that happens often times in family life is that people think maybe the challenge you are having with a child when they are a teenager or even in adolescence that this is going to go on forever and it doesn't. They get to their 20s, they change dramatically in their 20s. So sometimes it's just holding on for the ride, and just being there and holding on for the ride.

I must bridge the gap between adolescent glitter and mature glow.

The mind of a little child is fascinating, for it looks on old things with new eyes-but at about twelve this changes. The adolescent offers nothing, can do nothing, say nothing that the adult cannot do better.

You have to understand the teen years of any leader to understand the mechanics of their leadership.