Have you ever noticed how as an adult, all the bright colors go out of your life? Now that I’m not a kid anymore, things always look gray, like a clothesline draped with laundry that’s been washed too many times and left to stand in the wind. I g...
When I grow up I mean to be A Lion large and fierce to see. I'll mew so loud that Cook in fright Will give me all the cream in sight. And anyone who dares to say 'Poor Puss' to me will rue the day. Then having swallowed him I'll creep Into the Guest ...
I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . . that one of the most deeply human, an...
I was born with more power inside myself than I ever dreamed. But along with it there came no more sense than any other idiotic kid. Somewhere along in here I need to grow up into a man I can stand to live with. A man who doesn't just survive, but de...
Then you never really feel comfortable around most people. Especially your family, who probably never seemed to understand you. But as you grow up you find others like yourself, people who support you, embrace your weirdness, and love for who you are...
Indeed, girls can be so in need of social approval that they confuse harassment for acceptance--thinking that any attention is better than none. Since many girls as well as boys buy the idea that sexual aggression and exploitation is normal masculine...
Little girls grow up thinking that knights in shining armor actually exist. But they don't. And if those valiant heroes ever did bless this world with their chivalrous deeds, I imagine, just like Christ's apostles, they were destroyed by envy on...
When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will su...
And won’t he grow up to be the healthiest of young men, all because she kept him safe? Ready for the world. Ready to one day conquer it. To travel. Get on a train. Go to work. Get blown out of her life. Maybe she should be having that glass of wine...
The year now is 1774. Poseurs or not, it is time to grow up. It is time to enter the public realm, the world of public acts and public attitudes. Everything that happens now will happen in the light of history. It is not a midday luminary, but a corp...
You’re a beautiful mess to me,” he said. “Like wildflowers, growing up in the middle of a tire, along the side of the road. You’re not like prize roses, carefully planted in the right soil and pruned back at the right times. You’re wild, an...
The look in his eyes reminded me of myself. We were both alone in a new environment, trapped by our circumstances, and we both needed to grow up much faster than planned. Who knew that once I’d have something common with a deer.
Besides its content and methods, the cuisine devised by squaws and hillbilly women, as well as slave women, had another thing in common, which was the belief that you made do with whatever you could lay hands on--pigs' entrails, turnip tops, cowpeas,...
Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
Growing up, I was a little hippie kid. I went to some good concerts... Amnesty International with Bob Dylan and Tracy Chapman... The best concert I ever went to was this one at the Cow Palace my freshman year in college on New Year's Eve. It was Pear...
You'll call me a damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of christian children.' This was all said cheerfully. 'How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of c...
If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growin...
Whom to marry, and when will it happen—these two questions define every woman’s existence, regardless of where she was raised or what religion she does or doesn’t practice. She may grow up to love women instead of men, or to decide she simply d...
Sure, I've felt racism. I think everybody has prejudice. When I was growing up, the dark Mexican kids weren't allowed in the public swimming pool in Dallas. My light-skinned friend got in, and he laughed at us. It didn't seem like a big deal, because...
I had always been interested in the space program, and I didn't know if I could be an astronaut like I'd dreamt about when I was a little kid - to me it sounded kind of silly, someone grow up to be an astronaut - but, when I was in my 20s, I thought ...
We are born, we grow up, we live our lives as best we can. If we are thoughtful we are good parents and good partners. If we are wise we strive for integrity and intimacy. If we are fortunate we discover love and joy. If we are able, we make the worl...
