Maturation Quotes

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist--a master--and that is what Auguste Rodin was--can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“I can't beat you, I can't join you.”
― Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

“Lily appeared, wearing her nightclothes, in the doorway. She gave an impatient sigh. 'This is certainly a very LONG private conversation,' she said. 'And there are certain people waiting for their comfort object.'
Lily,' her mother said fondly, 'you're very close to being an Eight, and when you're an Eight, your comfort object will be taken away. It will be recycled to the younger children. You should be starting to go off to sleep without it.'
But her father had already gone to the shelf and taken down the stuffed elephant which was kept there. Many of the comfort objects, like Lily's, were soft, stuffed, imaginary creatures. Jonas's had been called a bear.
Here you are, Lily-billy,' he said. 'I'll come help you remove your hair ribbons.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“Everything in Scripture is either preparation for the Gospel, presentation of the Gospel, or participation in the Gospel.”
― Dave Harvey

“I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully.”
― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

“We make stupid mistakes when we're young; we do our best to make amends for them as we get older. We survive by learning; by learning we survive. Such is life. So be it.”
― Allen Steele, Coyote

“A love for his child was so profound, it spilled over to all humanity.”
― John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me

“anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After.”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“(Bonhoeffer's) change was not an ungainly, embarrassing leap from which he would have to retreat slightly when he gained more maturity and perspective. It was by all accounts a deepening consistent with what had gone before.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Muista poika, että tämän päivän kapinallinen on huomispäivän pieru”
― Mauri Kunnas, Nyrok city kokoelma

“QUIRK THEORY: Many of the differences that cause a student to be excluded in school are the same traits or real-world skills that others will value, love, respect, or find compelling about that person in adulthood and outside of the school setting.”
― Alexandra Robbins, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School

“As we age, we become more aware of the rarity and exquisiteness of beauty, and come to admire the flowers blooming amongst rubble. With each advancing decade, nature’s beauty and the magnificence of life increasingly amazes me. Maturation allows a person to appreciate the springtime frolic of youth and to inventory the knowledge garnered from a rigorous summer reflecting upon adulthood’s long pull. Ageing allows people to free themselves from the strife and strivings of their younger self. Reflective contemplation nurtures the cherished milk of wisdom. I shall rejoice in the commonplace acts of being. Today is an apt time to embrace learning at all stages of life. It is also an apt time to commence exercising the principles of good husbandry by beginning to making preparation for the inevitable freeze of winter.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The willingness to become greater than you are is itself becoming greater than you are.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“And now, at the sight of this clumsy stranger...I had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog's life, for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“Pain is the thing that I am most desperate to avoid, yet if I have any hope to grow it is the thing that I most desperately need.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I wish the world to be changed. To be better. To be what it could be rather than what it has chosen to become. Such wishes are good…in fact they are great and noble. But they must begin with me becoming what I wish the world was.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“A seed is a place where things begin their lives. It is not a place where they live their lives, for attempting to do so will end their lives.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Make the story of your success greater than the accounts of your failures.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Your failures are not embarrassments to be buried. Rather, they are seeds to be planted.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The greatest lessons lay in the greatest failures. And while I prefer not to seek out failure, I will most certainly seek out the lessons that lay within failure.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I am far too often ‘caught up’ in the person who I am, verses being ‘drawn up’ into the person I could be.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Never fear your pain. Rather, let your pain grow you, for our greatest opportunities for growth rest in our darkest moments.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“As children learn to cope effectively with various threats (and gain better coping skills as a result of physical and brain maturation), they gradually become less fearful and achieve a growing sense of mastery.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Here's the truth of the matter: growth is not the goal of grieving. Nor is it a mark that someone has grieved well. Grieving is the process of survival, resilience, rebuilding, connecting with the past, redefining your identity, recalibrating your values, and so on. Some people will experience growth as a by-product of this process, but certainly not all. And, those who do feel they've experienced growth often don't see it this way for some time after their loss.

Another little-known truth is that one may feel they have experience growth in their grief yet still feel intense pain over the loss. It's important to talk about the true nature of post-traumatic growth so people understand that it's not an easy path out of or around pain. On the contrary, only through confronting and struggling with pain can such growth and transformation occur.”
― Eleanor Haley, What's Your Grief?: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss

“Tomorrow I will have an entire day to squeeze incredible lessons out of my worst failures. And therefore, my plan is to start squeezing early.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“And yet it was important that Zachary be squished. The kid had been given his own practice room, a cubicle space lined with eggshell foam and scattered with more guitars than Katz had owned in 30 years. Already, for pure technique, to judge from what Katz had overheard in his comings and goings, the kid was a more hotdog soloist than Katz had ever been or ever would be. But so where a hundred thousand other American highschool boys. So what? Rather than thwarting his father's vicarious rock ambitions by pursuing entomology or interesting himself in financial derivatives, Zachery dutifully aped Jimi Hendrix. Somewhere there had been a failure of imagination.”
― Jonathan Franzen , Freedom

“Transformation that is neither fiercely turbulent nor inordinately frightening is not transformation.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“[Just] as grass doesn't grow faster when we pull on it,
we can't speed up our maturation!”
― Elke Heinrich

“All the mortal things I had been revering in my life, everything that I was looking up to in awe suddenly came down to eye level in front of me and all the mortal things I had looked down upon and patronized in my life, suddenly rose up to eye level. Now, the world was flat and I was looking it in the eye.”
― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

“Any deficit that you have can never stand against the asset that that deficit is waiting to become.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough