Coming Of Age Quotes

“But clearly life took people and shook them around until finally they were unrecognizable even to those who had once known them well. Still, there was power in once having known someone.”
― Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

“When I was twenty-something, I asked my father, “When did you start feeling like a grownup?” His response: “Never.”
― Shannon Celebi

“Soon, he would become an adult. And when he did, there would be not going back because adulthood was akin to what his father had once said about being a war hero: one you became one, you died one.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“I love you when you’re happy.
I love you when you’re sad.
I love you if you’re angry,
And I love you if you’re bad.

No matter how you feel,
I love you all the time.
Oh my sweet, dear baby,
I love you all the time.”
― Carla J. Hanna, Starlet's Run

“College isn't half as much fun as they told us it was going to be."
"It's not one-hundredth as much fun.”
― Molly Ringle, Relatively Honest

“Dear God, please help me to be the kind of person who my dogs think I am.”
― Jerrie Brock, Something Taken

“We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“Adam stared down at me, his expression thunderous. “It was you. I know it was you.”

My head was rocking side to side before I could stop it. “No.” I wrenched my hand free of his. “You’re wrong.”

“I’m not!” Anger blazed hot behind his eyes as they burned into me. “Look at me, Kia! Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not her.”
― Airicka Phoenix, Finding Kia

“It is hard to be true to yourself because it is hard to be yourself.”
― Jenny Hubbard, Paper Covers Rock

“I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win”
― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“Cry your guts out because nothing is sadder than an adult who forgets how to be a child.”
― Alison Espach

“But I don't know, in the end, what deserts, chasms, achievements, virtues, and beauties have to do with love. We can love for so many different, and paradoxical, qualities in the object of our love--for strength or for weakness, for beauty or for ugliness, for gaiety or for sadness, for sweetness or for bitterness, for goodness or for wickedness, for need or for impervious independence. Then, if we wonder from what secret springs in ourselves gushes our love, our poor brain goes giddy from speculation, and we wonder what is all meaning and worth. Is it our own need that makes us lean toward and wish to succor need, or is it our strength? What way would our strength, if we had it, incline our heart? Do we give love in order to receive love, and even in the transport or endearment carry the usurer's tight-lipped and secret calculation, unacknowledged even by ourselves? Or do we give with an arrogance after all, a passion for self-definition? Or do we simply want a hand, any hand, a human object, to clutch in the dark on the blanket, and fear lies behind everything? Do we want happiness, or is it pain, pain as the index of reality, that we, in the chamber of our heart, want?

Oh, if I knew the answer, perhaps then I could feel free.”
― Robert Penn Warren, Band of Angels: A Novel

“The river moves, but it follows a path. When it tires of one journey, it rubs through some rock to forge a new way. Hard work, but that's its nature.”
― Kekla Magoon, The Rock and the River

“You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you’ll see someday.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“In my early teens, I heard about Naked Lunch and its mutating typewriters and talking cockroaches. While I would hardly classify its dystopic vision as erotica now, at the time, Naked Lunch was my first foray into consuming smut. It was because of Burroughs that I knew about the particular musk that blooms when a rectum is penetrated, and that death-by-hanging produces spontaneous trouser tents. The first Burroughs I read was Naked Lunch, but I buried myself in a few of his stories, and thus the arc of my recollection is just as non-linear as his narrative.”
― Peter Dubé, Best Gay Stories 2012

“This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“The butterflies have flown away, like my ignorance and youth.”
― Eileen Granfors, The Pinata-Maker's Daughter

“I push through physical pain. Life hurts. I enjoy the positives.”
― Carla J. Hanna

“I fall in love with Paraíso. It’s like a giant playground where I’m never scolded for running around recklessly, where I’m almost overwhelmed with the amount of attention and love I receive from Mami’s family. In New York, I’m invisible.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“It was a sacrifice worthy of her and dreams are made to be killed.”
― David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]

“In no mood for one of her silly games, I snatched it off her and scanned the page. It turned out to be a list of names, all of them boys, and some of whom I recognised. And then I noticed the title: ‘Operation: Popping the Cherry’. I leaped to my feet and fired a glare at each of them in turn, trying not to shout. ‘Are you shitting me?”
― Aurelia B. Rowl, Popping the Cherry

“Quick, somebody call the caretaker!’ Gemma’s stage voice rang out loud and clear. ‘There’s some trash here that needs to be taken out.’ She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. ‘Christ, it reeks, too,’ she said, pinching her nose. ‘What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don’t expect you to have heard of the adage “less is more”.”
― Aurelia B. Rowl, Popping the Cherry

“They drove back to her house in silence. Terrance pulled the car into the driveway and turned off the engine. Turning toward her, he said, “Khadejah, I really like you a lot and I don’t want to hurt you. But I’m not a virgin and I like to have sex. If we’re going to keep seeing each other, you’ve got to make a decision, because if I can’t get it from you I’ll get it from someone else.” He looked her straight in her tear-filled eyes. “I need to know whether to get a room for after the concert. Let me know tomorrow.” He reached over and opened her door.
Khadejah didn’t say a word. She got out of the car and went into the house.
Terrance sat there for a few minutes wondering if he was being fair. She had to know that he was having sex. Damn, I should feel honored that she’s still a virgin, he thought. Shit, I’ll just have my cake and eat it, too.

Ten minutes later, Terrance was knocking on Adrienne’s door. “Hey, can I come in?”
― Tracy L. Darity, He Loves Me He Loves Me Not!

“Mama and I sat on a burping bus full of chickens in cages, and round-eyed babies on round mothers' laps. (The Pinata-Maker's Daughter)”
― Eileen Granfors

“He looked along the line of children, exhibits A to C of his existence and heirs to the twisted throne of his corrupt genetics.”
― David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]

“So you’re the little smart ass from Poleglass.”
I wanted to point out he sounded like Dr. Seuss but bit my lip and remembered the warning the old lady gave me.”
― David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]

“He was a shadow of the man that once intimidated us out of our home, a shell of a human being, a fragment of a father.”
― David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]

“Jie man sakė, kad turiu rasti savyje ryžto ir jėgų nebūti vidutinybė (toks yra neišpildomas troškimo paketas, kurį pardavinėja nykios apsnigtos vidurinės mokyklos)<...>”
― Gabija Grušaitė, Neišsipildymas

“It's in a can. It's good forever.”
― Renata Suerth, New School & Other Stuff