"And I decided that if motherhood turned a "young American beauty" into that unhappy woman, then motherhood wasn't for me, either. That youthful, emotional decision (ill-formed and made for the wrong reasons) kept me from too much early sexual experimentation, and probably turned me into a bit of a tease. I'd "neck" but only go so far, because . . . well, I because I was going to be a writer, "free and unhampered." At the very least. I wasn't going to get pregnant in my teens."

"Education conceived as preparation for life locks the learning process within a vicious circle. Youth educated in terms of adult ideas and taught to think of learning as a process which ends when real life begins will make no better use of intelligence than the elders who prescribe the system. Brief and rebellious moments occur when youth sees this fallacy clearly, but alas, the pressure of adult civilization is too great; in the end young people fit into the pattern, succumb to the tradition of their elders—indeed, become elderly-minded before their time. Education within the vicious circle becomes not a joyous enterprise but rather something to be endured because it leads to a satisfying end. But there can be no genuine joy in the end if means are irritating, painful."

"As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you."

"Betty, who substituted at the middle school, like to say that there was really no such thing as a thirteen-year-old, but inside every eighth grader were a ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old locked in mortal combat. Given enough time, the big kid would win and ask to borrow the car. Meanwhile, according to Betty, the best Faith could do was to silently chant the mother’s mantra: “It’s only a phase, it’s only a phase.”"

"Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars."

"But nope, teenage humans. The worst, most ill-conceived creatures in the universe. “Other than turkeys, right?” Yes, nothing beats those morons."

"Every young adult has the potential power to help the entire world. He just needs the right guidance and support. A garden with different flowers becomes beautiful when it blossoms. Similarly, if parents learn how to be a ‘gardener’ and are able to recognize their child's personality and nourish it, then their ‘garden’ will become fragrant! This is what positive parenting is all about!"

"Dr. David Wheeler: ...easiest thing in the world, being a teenager: you get up, you go to school, you come home, and you do your homework. How do you mess that up? Yet all of you did, in one way or another ― and now I have to clean up that mess!"

"I make movies for teenage boys. Oh, dear, what a crime."

"I'll tell you what would really age me fast: if I had a teenaged daughter. I don't think I could handle that. Because that would mean teenaged boys would be coming around to my house. "Hi, Mr. Barry!" they'd say, with their cheerful, innocent young voices. "We're here to have sex with your daughter!" No, of course they wouldn't come out and say that, but I know that's what they'd be thinking, because I was a teenaged boy once, and I was basically a walking hormone storm. I'm sure modern boys are no different. So if I had a teenaged daughter, and a boy came to my house, after somehow picking his way through the land mines in the lawn, I'd probably lunge through the screen door and strangle him right there ("Hi, Mr. Barry! Is Jennifer heAAAAAAAWWWWK"). You think I'm exaggerating, but I have male friends whose daughters are approaching puberty at speeds upwards of 700 miles per hour, and when you say the word "dating," my friends get a look in their eyes that makes Charles Manson look like Captain Kangaroo."