“I’m not going to be specific, but I had some early sexual experiences that, as I got older, were really, really difficult to deal with. It wasn’t to do with anything that happened in my family or at home, it was these… different things that happened. So my mental health had come through the negotiation of sex as a teenager and a young man, and romantic relationships.”
“Both Calvin and Hobbes are sitting on a carpet, a "magic carpet." They're riding in the sky, among the clouds.
CALVIN:
Hey, let's fly into the city and buzz Dad's office.
CALVIN:
Ha! Won't he be surprised whenhe sees US out his 20th-floor window.
HOBBES:
What if he's mad that we took the hallway rug?
CALVIN:
What's to get mad about?" We wiped our feet first.
HOBBES:
Yeah, but all this city mileage may hurt the resale value.”
“He was talking in a voice which didn't sound at all like James Bond, but which Harriet recognized as his James Bond voice.”
Source: The Little Friend
“It was all so easy. My mum says it was denial. That I wanted life to pass me by, instead of standing there getting drenched in it like everyone else. She thought less of me now, that was hardly surprising. I thought less of her, too. We were standing on each side of a trench, measuring each other. Measuring each other with our eyes. Who was the stronger? Who was the weak? Who would come creeping in the night, sobbing and reaching out to be held?”
Source: Welcome to America
“A sense of something gone slightly wrong, but when she asked, no one would tell her the truth. And that was where childhood lay, in the shadow of knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what it was or why it was or how to fix it.”
Source: Every Bone a Prayer
“When I open that ancient sticker book and scratch yellowing stickers curling at the edges, what I smell most is not a pizza, or chocolate, but my childhood. I give scratch and sniff stickers 3 1/2 stars.”
Source: The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
“The aching nostalgia for her own youth remained—the bright Andalusian days when each hour was filled to bursting with the promise of magic, when her life lay ahead of her, inexhaustible, as yet untouched.”
Source: The Stories of Paul Bowles
“I must be happy, he said, it is less pleasant than I should have thought.”
Source: Malone Dies
“She remembered the days when she and her best friend would draw hearts on the beach, the waves erasing their ephemeral creations. Those carefree moments seemed like a distant dream now—afternoons at the arcade, junk food on the boardwalk. She couldn’t recall the last time she did anything so wonderfully silly.”
Source: One Day, A Thousand Autumns
“We sacrifice their childhood on the altar of preparing them for adulthood.
But what if childhood was the preparation?
What if having a whole childhood was the key to a healthy adulthood?”
Source: The Wild and Free Family: Forging Your Own Path to a Life Full of Wonder, Adventure, and Connection