Quotation Canapés: No. 4 – Coming of Age

Quote #1

I am growing up… I am losing my illusions, perhaps to acquire new ones.

―  Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Quote #2

When a child first catches adults out — when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just — his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.

― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Quote #3

Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…

― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Quote #4

I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Quote #5

You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.

― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

See Also

• Find dozens of coming of age stories in the catalog list.
• About this series.
• All the titles listed are in the Colorado Book Club Resource collection (each set is 8+ copies) and made available to book clubs statewide, thanks to participation from libraries. Find out more!