Youthful Mischief Quotes

When the rich kids got together, the most we ever did was cross against a red light.

It's important for every child to have a bit of a naughty streak.

My dad always jokes that we should have a reality TV show because my friends and I pull crazy stunts, like putting Saran Wrap on the toilet.

A boy who is trouble is something entirely different as a man.

I was a different kind of kid. Pau always knew what he wanted. He was really good at school, really responsible. I was more of a loose cannon, honestly. I was running around and outside, and getting into a little trouble more than anything. But always in a good way. It was never my fault. It was the other guy. I was just there.

Guys like Henry and his buddies were an accident waiting to happen; the little kids' version of floods or tornadoes or gallstones.

I was kicked out of drama school in 1976, aged 18, for vandalising the headmistress's tyres, after being there for less than a year.

I like Pixie Sticks. Yeah, screw the middle man. Just a tube of sugar... I'd pour two of those in a big 12 ounce coke. And I'd go out to catechism class and try to concentrate on the priest. I saw Jesus several times. I swear I did.

When you are 16 you are supposed to be doing cool things, like sneaking alcohol, not living in Disney World and doing skits about mice.

Growing up, I probably raised a bit more hell than I should have.

We're gonna play some pool, skip some school, act real cool, stay out all night, it's gonna be alright.

Every day I'd come home after school, pop the hood of my mom's car, put alligator clips on the battery, and wire into the house and go play on my computer. If I used it for too long, I'd wear down the car battery, and my mom would be all mad at me the next day.

I was a total bad girl growing up.

When I was younger, I used to drive up to a bunch of turkeys, roll down the window and say something. They'd all gobble back at once.

When I was seventeen, I left Scotland to go to Kent, a well-to-do boarding school in Connecticut, where there was a contingent of really naughty kids.

Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Let to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more - Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there.

I remember going through the cafeteria line and telling every kid that Nixon was in favor of school on Saturdays. It was my first political trick.

"I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?" "Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example." "Why not?" "Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff." "Like ride bikes?" I said. "No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And..." "Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?" "They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference."

What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them?

I think anyone who has a boy would tell you that they do the sort of things that make you look at them and ask why they would do that. 'Oh right, because you're a boy.'

Growing up in a small town of two thousand people, there wasn't too many ways to get in trouble. But I found some. We got caught stealing green plums from this old lady's yard.

Near our vineyard there was a pear tree laden with fruit that was not attractive in either flavor or form. One night, when I [at the age of sixteen] had played until dark on the sandlot with some other juvenile delinquents, we went to shake that tree and carry off its fruit. From it we carried off huge loads, not to feast on, but to throw to the pigs, although we did eat a few ourselves. We did it just because it was forbidden.

It was all that stuff about taking your parents' car when you're 13, sneaking booze into rock shows and ditching school with your friends. I could relate to that as a former teenager, rather than as a present parent.

We weren't wealthy but we definitely weren't poor. We were incredibly rich because there was a wonderful community in Shepherd's Bush, where I grew up. All my friends were into villainy and crime.

Mind you, I was a bit of a naughty one when I was younger.