Best 660 quotes in «coming of age quotes» category

There's nothing that can't be made harder.

There was a dazzling intellect beneath the girl's sadness, she was sure - and it bothered Mallory to no end that it might go wasted on the world if Dawn could not be coaxed out of her melancholy.

There’s something simple about running with him along the beach, and it’s like I get to see the real Drew there too.", Loving Summer by Kailin Gow

There's something to say about inspiration - when it comes into your life...the feeling is insatiable.

There were days when Amory resented that life had changed from an even progress along a road stretching ever in sight, with the scenery merging and blending, into a succession of quick, unrelated scenes... He felt that it would take all time, more than he could ever spare, to glue these strange cumbersome pictures into the scrap-book of his life.

There were the signed, spiral-bound Spirit-in-the-Woods yearbooks from three summers in a row and the aerial photograph of everyone at camp the second summer. In it, Ethan's feet were planted on Jule's head, and Jule's feet were planted on Goodman's head, and so on and so on. And didn't it always go like that-body parts not quite lining up the way you wanted them to, all of it a little bit off, as if the world itself were an animated sequence of longing and envy and self-hatred and grandiosity and failure and success, a strange and endless cartoon loop that you couldn't stop watching, because, despite all you knew by now, it was still so interesting.

There's something about the thousands of glittering lights, the veil of nighttime that almost makes this place beautiful, especially in the reflection of the water. It makes everything askew, disoriented. There's more truth in a ripple of water than in a clear day.

There was a sudden flash of lightning which brightly illuminated our faces. I squinted against the harsh light. It was soon followed by the crack of thunder. The strong wind whipped our hair around our faces, and the younger girls squealed as they quickly ran across the grass to get inside the school. Rose and I sat up, smiles on our faces as we listened to the weather’s dangerous melody. The third flash of lightning finally ripped open the sky’s belly. Freezing rain cascaded out, drenching us in a matter of seconds, the flower garlands drooping and lying limp on our matted hair.

There were days when Amory resented that life had changed from an even progress along a road stretching ever in sight, with the scenery merging and blending, into a succession of quick, unrelated scenes...

These Aussie girls are free to set their own courses in the world, to meander and experiment. Their travels are not bumps along the road - they are life itself. See the world and then come home and decide who you want to be in it, not the other way around, as seems the general trajectory in the U.S.

The spiking temps spiked a fever for cool commons, so I made a plate of tapenade, bruschetta, and prosciutto, with orange creamsicle martinis flowing like a Zen fountain. It was hard for me to believe that I woke up that morning fighting back tears for no reason and all kinds of reasons. It is still... hard for me to believe that you have become no reason, at all.

The stained-glass window on the front door shatters into tiny pieces behind her as it slams shut when he gets to it at last. It sounds like a musical cadence, heightening some eerie psycho movie score.

The stars twinkled high above and reflected onto the cold window. I blew on the frosty glass and watched my breath fog up. I traced my initials across the cold glass, the condensation trickling down the pane.

The terrible price of living, ain’t it? To live through others dying?

The second hardest part about growing up is trying to figure out who you are. The hardest part comes after you've figured it out and the rest of the world wants to pull you in a different direction.

These were young people having their fun. Old age comes quickly. If you don’t enjoy life at that time, you will never get another chance. At our age you only get afflictions.

The thing about death is that it comes. Even the cleanest of deaths can leave remorse. The duality of it is dealing and understanding when it is a loved one, we have to derive a meaning from it at least personally. We define ourselves with the way we let go of our loved ones. The duality of it is that this ultimate loved one for you can die and the fact that it did not mean anything more in the grand scheme of things than how it effects you those around you. Some egoists have this belief that one death is more tragic than another, this is most easily represented when a celebrity dies and the news on everyones personal flat-screen holographic television displays it throughout the day. The importance of life is erased in death. It is the polar opposite, it is the abyss of nothings what some hipsters call the void, there is nothing more tragic than it ceased to exist in any circumstance we as the atomic beings decide to view it as. Maybe there is no way of knowing what is more tragic, watching life escape a person you loved or not being able to say goodbye.

The thing about leaving home, that self proclaimed exile, is that you love it even more if it is that bird that sings you the answer when you visit it after being gone for extended periods of time. The longer you are away the more you will think about going back. If only for your eyes to weep at the changes.

The true ugliness of the closet is its subtlety. It eats away at your soul bit by bit and you don't even realize it. If you never deal with it or comes to terms with it, then ultimately the closet will destroy you.

The truly cost effective lifestyle would be to produce everything you require, it would subsequently imply a self-created kind of freedom. Time would be lost but it would all be your own, this however does not account for skill. The current institutionalised education system was not made for self-sustainability but rather extreme specialisation. The business sector itself accounts for a large amount of activity, so much so that it has its own defining term: the economy. Spaces in the world, both virtual and spatial have always had the socio-polticial-economic system but now it is more defined, more contested and more vulnerable.

The two of us locked up our own little secrets from the real world. We had experienced countless sleepless nights when we would share our fears, our worries, and our passions; when we would gossip about the school and the other girls. We had played too many pranks and snuck out more than enough times to be expelled if the teachers ever found out. We were professionals at the art of being discreet; however, we had never found sneaking out of a residence necessary, especially when the reason was not to play a prank.

The vibrant matte amethyst dial made the gleaming hour and minute markers seem to come alive. The long, thick hands were fragile, yet ceaselessly ticking by, like life itself. Countless hours must have been invested in the bezel, meticulously hashed all the way around. The tachymeter claimed prominence as if asserting that distance travelled over time should be of paramount importance. Never had the sheer pace and inevitability of time been better captured in an object.

The words and phrases had so much more gravitas in her adult mind. She felt a sharp pang of guilt as she realized the extent of what she hadn’t been aware of, and how little compassion she’d had as an actual teen.

They gobbled the shrimp dumplings. From the first time they’d seen the sheer size of the meat through the translucent wrapper, they’d taken vows to be regulars. The pork sui mai was the next to be devoured. They savored in silence, except for the slurping of the stir-fried clams in black-bean sauce.

They will bloom when they're ready.

This city is yawning before me, but I'm not tired.

This is the fairytale of my life, the mythology of my existence, and, as I only have one story to tell, there is only one way to tell it. You may find it a little melodramatic at moments and you may not like who I was at times. But, princes frequently start out as frogs and, perhaps, by the time I reach my end, you will understand why. And so, as we all must have a beginning, a middle and an end, I will start at the beginning. Once upon a time...

This town of churches and dreams; this town I thought I would lose myself in, with its backward ways and winding roads leading to nowhere; but, I found myself instead. -Magic in the Backyard (excerpt from American Honey)

Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.

The worst of anything she could do to me would be to make me like her. That's why I ran away.

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?

They stood in the courtyard of Swangard Palace, too cold to be comfortable despite the sun, and they looked fully on one another, knowing that they were friends, and would always be. A lot of water under this bridge too, Mark thought, with something like awe. He was growing older. Old enough to feel the current of what had been flowing under him, leading to his future. Old enough to look back over his shoulder, and see his past behind him, and grieve for what was gone, and honour its memory. He felt, suddenly, how much it would hurt him if Val died; felt an echo of that pain, knowing that the Valerian he had known, fluffy and peering and hapless and altogether wonderful: this Valerian was already dying. Not physically, of course, but the man he remembered from that first night in Swangard Palace would be gone the next time they met, though his ghost would linger on in Val forever, and in their memories. Three cheers for ghosts, Mark thought. Three cheers for the dead. Of course Val would be much the same: better, even. As full of wonder and delight, with big pockets full of puzzles and fascinating stories about the lives of ants and ingenious designs for windmills that would do your washing. And they would still be friends, excellent friends. It could even be better next time. But it would never be the same.

They think I’m not entirely ‘grounded in reality’, they say. They want me to go to some live-in nerdy activity ranch thing for troubled Canadian youth, that one out in Ontario where you come back programmed like some robot, dressed in a tye-dyed shirt and eating tuna sandwiches,” Mandy explained, a horrified look on her face. “You’re eighteen, not twelve! Would they really send you to some rat’s nest like that?” Wendy questioned in mock horror. “Aw hell no, if you get sent there, they’ll make you hold hands and sing songs about caring! And they’ll force you to recycle everything in blue canisters, and to discuss your emotions in front of groups of bratty little dopes!” “Dear god, they’ll have geeky youth wiener roasts at night, and no locks on the doors!” Mandy added, eyes wide. “…It’ll be the day pigs fly, my parents have the camp brochure on the fridge but they’ll never go through with sending me there. They always forget.

Thinking he knows can be a trap. An ex-professor once told him he had a diamond-hard intellect and he’d been flattered at the time. Now he considers the nature of diamonds. Although sharp and glittering and useful for cutting glass, they shine with reflected light only. They’re no use at all in the dark

This bitterly cold weather is a shift from an even colder half of year. It's as if we're back to some sort of embryonic development that brought us to where we started: an inertia of life— changing positions like atoms within a molecule— the cruel, cruel curse of the winter sunset... a reminder that natural light comes and goes as it damn well pleases.

This is a test. This is only a test. If this was my actual life I'd be famous, rich, and thin.

This is where I long to get home to after vacation. This is where I feel comfy in my pajamas. This is where, no matter where I go, my bed is here and none is better than my own. When I think about you, you can never be him... When once upon a time ago, I never thought there WAS a him that could ever be you.

This very easy divorce had become very difficult. I thought I was in the express lane and it was all fast tracks from there. Think again.

Throughout the black night, with every step taken, I left my youth further behind; there would be no turning back.

Time collapsed into a delicate dark pencil brushed against our eyebrows, the emergent rumble of crowds gathering above our heads. We slid into our costumes. Pirate, outlaw, futuristic rebels. Red, purple, gold. Chains hanging from our belts, tight black trousers. We were moved upstairs, closer to the stage. Finally, we heard the cannon's roar: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... Tanzar recording artists... THE MASTER PLANETS!" The world shot forward. We stepped into the spotlight.

Time is a funny thing. You can go through it and meddle with it, but nothing can stay permanent. So even if everything so far had not happened, time would still have managed to find a way to make all this happen.

Time' is the most threatening four letter word.

To all the boys, for when you become men: you'll leave women all throughout your life because they're holding you back, and even after she's gone she'll still weigh you down. To all the women: stay away from us men. We don't know anything about you, despite what we try to convince you of.

Today I hate myself for loving you, and I hate myself for not being strong enough to love you back... when I know broken boys like you need me, too.

To live in this world, I realized, is to leave pieces of your heart in various places; and to move toward any place is to move away from another.

To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me.

Two insane idiots with the same idea, that is what love is.

Usted tiene condiciones innegables, pero estudie, usted cree que porque piensa lo ha hecho todo, y pensar no es nada más que un principio.

Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.” Chat. British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you.

Veins raised themselves along the backs of my hands that summer. My handwriting changed several times. I began reading Time magazine. Soon after that it was time to go.