818 Quotes About Coming-of-age

When they reached the top of the hill they turned and looked down at the valley. Moominhouse was just a blue dot, and the river a narrow ribbon of green: the swing they couldn't see at all. "We've never been such a long way from home before," said Moomintroll, and a little goose-fleshy thrill of excitement came over them at the thought.

I learned that adults were not soaring gods, but rather back-yard birds with broken wingtips.When you are thirteen, about to free-fall into the real world, discovering the broken wingtips is terrifying.

It's really best not to tell people when you feel bad. Growing up is about keeping secrets, and pretending everything is fine.

I guess that’s what growing up is. Saying good-by to a lot of things. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it isn’t. But it is all right.

Cry your guts out because nothing is sadder than an adult who forgets how to be a child.

…girls were like poems: weird, incomprehensible and boring, but those “in the know” assured me that they were beautiful.

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.

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

It’s always better to accomplish something than nothing, but coming of age is about more than learning who you are inside: it’s as much about who you are in relation to others – and who you want to be