#adolescence

I think one is naturally impressed by anything having a beginning a middle and an ending when one is beginning writing and that it is a natural thing because when one is emerging from adolescence, which is really when one first begins writing one feels that one would not have been one emerging from adolescence if there had not been a beginning and a middle and an ending to anything. ↗

— Gertrude Stein

#gertrude-stein #narration #narrative #writing #nature

For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded. ↗

— Kate Chopin

#teen

I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early poetry, and bad poets publish it. Thankfully I gave up rather quickly. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#poetry #talent #youth #age

Adolescence is the same tragedy being performed again and again. The only things that change are the stage props. ↗

— Lindsey Leavitt

#life #wisdom #change

His adolescent nerdliness vaporizing any iota of a chance he had for young love. Everybody else going through the terror and joy of their first crushes, their first dates, their first kisses while Oscar sat in the back of the class, beind his DM's screen, and watched his adolescence stream by. Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years. ↗

— Junot Díaz

#nerdiness #dating

It’s hard not to be impatient with the absurdity of the young; they tell us that two and two make four as though it had never occurred to us, and they’re disappointed if we can’t share their surprise when they have discovered that a hen lays an egg. There’s a lot of nonsense in their ranting and raving, but it’s not all nonsense. One ought to sympathize with them; one ought to do one’s best to understand. One has to remember how much has to be forgotten and how much has to be learnt when for the first time one faces life. It’s not very easy to give up one’s ideals, and the brute facts of every day are bitter pills to swallow. The spiritual conflicts of adolescence can be very severe and one can do little to resolve them. ↗

— W. Somerset Maugham

#youth #life

All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged." "Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#adolescent-angst #teenaged-angst #family

Pewnego dnia w sezonie oglądania kwiatów wiśni wybrałem się z Senseiem do parku Ueno. Zobaczyliśmy tam uroczą młodą parę. Oboje szczęśliwi, przytuleni do siebie spacerowali pod ukwiecionymi drzewami. Ponieważ działo się to w miejscu publicznym, wielu ludzi - zamiast oglądać kwiaty - zwracało wzrok w ich stronę i przypatrywało im się uważnie. - Wyglądają jak nowożeńcy - rzekł Sensei. - Bardzo im chyba ze sobą dobrze - odpowiedziałem. Sensei nawet się nie uśmiechnął. Specjalnie, aby nie widzieć tej pary, skierował się w przeciwną stronę. A następnie zapytał: - Czy byłeś już kiedyś zakochany? Odpowiedziałem, że nie. - A czy nie chciałbyś się zakochać? Nic nie odpowiedziałem. - Nie twierdzisz chyba, że nie chciałbyś? - Nie. - Zadrwiłeś sobie z tej młodej pary, prawda? Lecz w tej drwinie zabrzmiała nuta niezadowolenia. Pragniesz miłości, ale jej nie znajdujesz. - Czy tak to zabrzmiało? - Oczywiście. Ten, kto by sam zaznał szczęścia miłości, mówiłby o tych dwojgu cieplej. Ale... słuchaj, miłość jest zbrodnią! Czy ty tego nie rozumiesz? Zaskoczył mnie. Nie odpowiedziałem nic. ↗

— Sōseki Natsume

#love #women #love

Byłem młodzieńcem dość prostodusznym, nie mającym doświadczenia w obcowaniu z kobietami. Czułem, co prawda, instynktowną niejasną tęknotę do płci odmiennej. Ale było to odczucie tak mgliste jak marzenie senne, podobne do wspomnień budzących się w chwili, gdy patrzymy na wiosenne chmury. Dlatego też ulegało nagłej przemianie z chwilą, gdy stawałem przed rzeczywistą kobietą, która - zamiast mnie pociągać - odpychała wzbudzając silną niechęć. ↗

— Sōseki Natsume

#love #women #love

Camus-boy, you're always going to be the same you, just older. It's not like there's a moment when you wake up and go, Shit, I'm grown-up, I don't feel like myself anymore.' I don't tell him, but this is the scariest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Being grown-up should feel like a big transition. It can't be something that, despite my best efforts, I've been drifting closer and closer to every summer. It needs to be a shock. I need to know at what point to stop holding on. And that moment will suck, and probably every moment after that will suck, but at least I'll know that everything that came before really was valid. I really was young and innocent. I wasn't fooling myself. ↗

— Hannah Moskowitz

#adulthood #growing-up #life