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Coming Of Age Quotes

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Coming Of Age Quotes

“I feel like being run over by a train: how couldn't I see, or care? I have much more than I need when it comes to material things as well as opportunities. I can basically do everything I want. Sure, my parents can still tell me where to go or what to do, but they don‟t impose their views on me. They will never marry me off. They will never forbid me to go to school. They will always do their best to make sure I‟ll be happy, healthy and safe. And what have I done to deserve all this? Absolutely nothing. It was a chance of luck, and that makes me responsible toward those who have not been as lucky as me.”

“I looked out the window at midnight and watched the snow drop slowly to the ground. It was 2004 at last and new beginnings were about to be discovered. All I can wish is that they can be created on the spot, but it'll have to wait. I have some time to make my wishes come true.”

“However long or short they may be, our lives can usually be pared down to a collection of choices made on a few fateful nights. Rarely do we know for sure which of these nights will be the ones that will alter everything to come. But if you pay close attention, there is a sensation, a light tingle beneath the surface of your skin, that hints at destiny.”

“Sometimes being vulnerable as a child is not knowing what lies ahead. We think our choices will make a huge difference in our lives because our parents and other elders spend so much time making sure we think before we act and make our minds up about what we want to be “when we grow up”. Some are already at that stage early on, some are not. We learn the ways of the world all in good time, but being vulnerable is to be human. We never stop.”

“What (we) wanted more than anything was to be close to each other, washing the dirt and dust from each other’s faces after our train chases, brushing the tangles out of our hair, sharing advice about boys and basketball, learning how to curse, grabbing a bottle of Coca-Cola and a Moon Pie from Mr. Shotts’ grocery store after school, dipping in a pond during the seven steamy months of the year.”

“Anika had the door halfway closed, but she paused at my question. ‘My mum used to say that you have two hands: one to help yourself, and one to help others. So yes, I think it’s a good thing.’ Then she sighed. ‘Though sometimes I wonder if the hand we use to help others moves a bit slower and with a little less purpose than the one we use to help ourselves.’ And with that, she closed the door.”

“Everyone talks about the grief of losing someone you love, but they don’t talk about the grief of losing everything familiar. It’s not just the person; it’s the life you shared, the little things that connected you to them. The mug my mom used for coffee, the pictures of her and us on the walls, the spot where Pacha tore the rug that she mended. It’s been seven years since she did that. The dog died two years ago and now mom has passed, but that line in the rug is still as clear in my sight as the day she sewed it.”

“We think and believe that we are exceptional. We have created so many stories around how exceptional humans are. We were created by the hands of the divine, and the universe is our gift. We believe that it was all created to serve us, but the reality of the matter is, we are not exceptional except for our ability to kill beauty and destroy. We are not as fast as the gazelle or a cheetah; we can't fly like birds; we don't have fur to protect us in the cold; we don't have natural strength to lift heavy objects like a gorilla or an elephant. We created fables to explain our presence, even scientific ones that we can't prove. It is all unproven theories, on all sides. We are not exceptional; we are only exceptional when we work together and in sync with nature like every other creature.”

“If she never had any lovers, she kicks herself around when the change comes, thinking of all the fun she could have had, didn't have, and now can't have. If she had a lot of lovers, she argues herself into believing that she did wrong and she's sorry now. She carries on that way because she knows that soon all her woman-ness will be lost...lost. And if she makes believe being with a man was never any good in the first place, she can get comfort out of her change.”

“Did you ... touch me right after you called me brat?" He shakes his head. "Why not?" I ask. "You were too intoxicated to give your consent." "And?" He frowns. "If, while you were drugged, I had touched you like I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to call myself a real man.”

“I may have smiled to myself as I watched the familiar pattern of the town pass, the bus cruising through shade to sunshine. I'd grown up in this place, had the knowledge of it so deep in me that I didn't even know most street names, navigating instead by landmarks, visual or memorial. The corner where my mother had twisted her ankle in a mauve pantsuit. The copse of trees that always looked vaguely attended by evil. The drugstore with its torn awning. Through the window of that unfamiliar bus, the burr of old carpet under my legs, my hometown seemed scrubbed clean of my presence. It was easy to leave it behind.”

“When it was time to board my flight, I took one last glance back. I knew that I had everything with me so it was not a "make sure I have everything" glance. It was more like a parting glance to Philadelphia, my home, America- for I would not be coming back for ten months. (Ch 5- Twenty in Paris)”

“People don’t need to die to disappear. Or to move on from a place, or a people or time. Sometimes it’s the place that does the moving on and we think remaining there will keep it alive. Like not giving in not conceding or admitting defeat. Becoming a holdout. The holdout. It’s only later that we realize a holdout can become a loss if it wasn’t already. I already lost. Home’s moved on.”

“I was changing, and it scared me, for I wanted to be a child always, and I did not want Dug to grow up. I wanted it to always be brittle cold November and both of us working there in that field, with birds flying and calling lonesome far above, and looking forward to how good the fire would feel at the end of the day. But that kind of thing can never be, and that is what hurt me like a knife.”

“From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive”

“It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.”

“I met a boy whose eyes showed me that the past, present and future were all the same thing.”

“True friends don't come with conditions.”

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

“Stop trying to be less of who you are. Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back.”

“Instinctively I had followed Mama’s caution against strangers, but she had also taught me to treat everyone the same no matter what or how different they were or what race they were. “These are only visible images,” Mama said, “like the colors and shapes of a painting. You need to look deeper to discover what the painting is about or how it affects you. It’s the same with people.””

“I could watch him do this until morning — never asking questions and never interrupting his work. I worship quietly — his intense focus and attention to detail and then, out of no where, I realize the inconvenient, inappropriate truth: ‘I love this man… and it has swallowed me.”

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

“He fights, night after night, to peel my onion soul without caring about it. I never see his tears but his eyes burn as they fill with the putrid smell of my insecurity, anger, and pain. He loves me in glorious bouts of unreserve, swearing I'm all he thinks about and all he wants. Those precious moments are worth the hatred he seems to have for me in the hours and days that come between.”

“Life is a valuable and unique opportunity to discover who you are. But it seems as soon as you near answering that age-old question, something unexpected always happens to alter your course. And who it is you thought you were suddenly changes. Then comes the frustrating realization that no matter how long life endures, no matter how many experiences are muddled through in this existence, you may never really be able to answer the question.... Who am I? Because the answer, like the seasons, constantly, subtly, inevitably changes. And who it is you are today is not the same person you will be tomorrow.”