Didn’t Woody Allen say that all literature was a footnote to Faust? Perhaps all adolescence is a dialogue between Faust and Christ. We tremble on the brink of selling that part of ourselves that is real, unique, angry, defiant and whole for the rewards of attainment, achievement, success and the golden prizes of integration and acceptance; but we also in our great creating imagination, rehearse the sacrifice we will make: the pain and terror we will take from others’ shoulders; our penetration into the lives and souls of our fellows; our submission to willingness to be rejected and despised for the sake of truth and love and, in the wilderness, our angry rebuttals of the hypocrisy, deception and compromise of a world which we see to be so false. There is nothing so self-righteous nor so right as an adolescent imagination.
Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian
Moab Is My Washpot, “Falling In,” ch. 6 (1997)
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Quotations about:
adolescence
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.
At sixteen I was stupid, confused and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing, and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure, and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?
Jules Feiffer (b. 1929) American cartoonist, authork, satirist
Cartoon, The Observer (3 Feb 1974)
Wherever there is authority, there is a natural inclination to disobedience.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) Canadian politician, judge, humorist
Sam Slick’s Wise Saws and Modern Instances (1853)
Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Whispers Under Ground (2012)
The invention of the teenager was a mistake, in Miss Manners’ opinion. […] Once you identify a period of life in which people have few restrictions and, at the same time, few responsibilities — they get to stay out late but don’t have to pay taxes — naturally nobody wants to live any other way.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Miss Manners’ Guide for the the Turn-of-the-Millennium, Part 2 “Home Life,” “Parents and Children” (1989)
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