We are not sure what we will become, only what we want to and don’t want to. We often become what we never thought we could, then we become fine with that.

~ Darnell Lamont Walker

Darnell Lamont Walker Adults Children Growing Up

What’s so beautiful about girls?” I would implore.And the secret society of adults would reply with a smirk and wink as if I was merely a boy who couldn’t possibly have the mental maturity to comprehend such grown-up concepts as love and bleeding vaginas; “You’ll understand someday, James.

~ Jake Vander-Ark

Jake Vander-Ark Coming Of Age Growing Up Puberty Puppy Love The Perfect Girl

Life is brief, young maiden, fall in love; before the crimson bloom fades from your lips, before the tides of passion cool within your hips, for those of you who know no tomorrow. (Gondola no Uta)

~ Kouhei Kadono

Kouhei Kadono Aging Girls Growing Up Life Love Women

Growing up, I'd already decided I wanted to be a beatnik. A Bohemian poet, I thought. Or a musician. Maybe an artist. I'd dress in black turtlenecks and smoke Gitanes. I'd listen to cool jazz in clubs, getting up to read devastating truths from my notebook, leaning against the microphone, cigarette dangling from my hand.

~ Charles De Lint

Charles De Lint Artist Beatnik Growing Up Poet Turtlenecks

Growing up changes morethan playground gamesand body shapes.

~ Emma Cameron

Emma Cameron Body Shape Changes Growing Up Playground Games

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

~ Amanda Hocking

Amanda Hocking Growing Up Maturity

That time when past begins to look longer than the future

~ Whipplesnaith

Whipplesnaith Growing Up

There is no night porter wandering about in King's. The authorities pay you the compliment, ugly gate-crasher, of treating you as a grown-up. And since we are not grown-up you and I, we will perform our midnight frolics as the inmates burn the midnight oil.

~ Whipplesnaith

Whipplesnaith Authority Growing Up Maturity Midnight

What must I do now?” Mrs. Muller considered her silently for a while. “You are still a child. You must go where you are told and do as you are told. But it won’t always be so. Soon you will be in charge of yourself. Until that time: Be aware. Listen. Look. Touch. Smell. And remember. But for now, you must go home.

~ Masha Du Toit

Masha Du Toit Anticipating The Future Children Do As You Re Told Growing Up

And then I know I'm being a man, not just some kid who's upset and wants it his way.

~ Angela Johnson

Angela Johnson Adults Coming Of Age Growing Up

A lot of childhood effort, worry, and whispering goes into cracking the codes of adult life. Children have to be accomplished spies.

~ Vera B. Williams

Vera B. Williams Children Growing Up