#rowing

It was strange walking through the empty apartment. My battered purple room was gone, Brittany’s bruised blue was gone. Two coats covered everything. It was like none of it had ever happened. ↗

— Kimberly Novosel

#growing-up #moving-on #paint #painting #purple

The boy and the man must be raised to see the possibility of self worth, then meet a few others who provide the vision of a road toward it, then spend a lifetime pursing that worth through action and relationship. One of the great tragedies in human life is to be born a male and not be guided toward the value of a man. ↗

— Michael Gurian

#manhood #self-worth #life

And what other kind of man would you want leading you into battle?” he says, reading my Noise. “What other kind of man is suitable for war?” A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes monsters of men. “Wrong,” says the Mayor. “It’s war that makes us men in the first place. Until there’s war, we are only children.” Another blast of the horn comes roaring down at us, so loud it nearly takes our heads off and it puts the army off its stride for a second or two. We look up the road to the bottom of the hill. We see Spackle torches gathering there to meet us. “Ready to grow up, Todd?” the Mayor asks. ↗

— Patrick Ness

#war #men

Pain? Yes, of course. Racing without pain is not racing. But the pleasure of being ahead outweighed the pain a million times over. To hell with the pain. What's six minutes of pain compared to the pain they're going to feel for the next six months or six decades. You never forget your wins and losses in this sport. YOU NEVER FORGET. ↗

— Brad Alan Lewis

#rowing #sports #motivational

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#parenting

I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them. Brian Fitzgerald, talking about his children. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#parenting #parents #parenting

Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us. ↗

— Brian Jacques

#emotion #emotions #flowers #fruit #growing

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. ↗

— J.D. Salinger

#growing-up #wilhelm-stekel #die

You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#free

The people they had been last summer, the person she had been--Dicey guessed she'd never be afraid again, not the way she had been all summer. She had taken care of them all, sometimes well, sometimes badly. And they had covered the distances. For most of the summer, they had been unattached. Nobody knew who they were or what they were doing. It didn't matter what they did, as long as they all stayed together. Dicey remembered that feeling, of having things pretty much her own way. And she remembered the feelings of danger. It was a little bit like being a wild animal, she thought to herself. Dicey missed that wildness. She knew she would never have it again. And she missed the sense of Dicey Tillerman against the whole world and doing all right. ↗

— Cynthia Voigt

#growing-up #introspective #poignant #change