Andrea Seigel Quotes

Many of the things that I have written on have focused, at least a big part of the story, on adolescents. I think that in that period of life, so much happens, and it's the period of life where you're forming into an adult. In certain ways, you're already an adult and in certain ways you're still a kid.

'Catcher in the Rye' changed my life when I was a kid. I read it as I was a boy turning into a man, and I was so fascinated by the values. I believe in it.

I know it's hard to believe that I'm no longer the young 'Zuri' everyone has grown to love, which I truly appreciate, but like every young lady, I'm growing, I'm maturing and finding myself at 16 years old discovering the joys and pains of the world we live in.

Coming-of-age stories in high school are exciting because everything that happens during that time is very heightened.

I was a 'young adult' when I wrote 'The Outsiders,' although it was not a genre at the time. It's an interesting time of life to write about, when your ideals get slammed up against reality, and you must compromise.

Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it's like to be twelve years old.

I am happy being able to play roles with people my age because once you do something really mature there is no turning back.

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.

But, on another level it's really sort of this really cool coming of age story, it reminds me of like The Breakfast Club or something like that, if I can be so bold to associate with The Breakfast Club.

Very intense first summer out, to be 18 years old and never having gone on a date, never having smoked a cigarette, never had a drink, even a sip of beer, never kissed a girl, all of those things. It made for a fairly intense first year out.

People forget that when you're 16, you're probably more serious than you'll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

I think I've been lucky enough to have had an extended adolescence. I'm a lot like I was when I was 15.

A lot of first novels are coming-of-age stories. A lot are autobiographical.

Adolescence is the most Technicolor time in our lives. It's the time when adulthood is new and we care most about it. It contains the highs and lows that excite me as a writer.

I visualized high school as being like 'Saved By the Bell.' I decided I would do all the things they did on that show.

In 'A Likely Story,' I wanted to recreate the events, the mood, and the imagery of my life as a teenager. I was thirty-seven when I wrote it.

What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?

I don't know what 15-year-old doesn't have a desire to separate themselves from their parents and prove their independence.

Who really wants to be themselves when they're teenagers?

I always think that period between the ages of 18 and 24 is such a bizarre stage, and the two people at either end are always very different.

With few exceptions, the publishing industry has come to a consensus: if a book has a young protagonist, and if its worldview is primarily interested in the questions that crop up when coming of age, then it's a young adult novel.

You grow up a certain way, and you make decisions within your family, but then you go to college, and the decisions become harder. You are away from home, from the influence of your parents, dealing with peer pressure. There's a lot of stuff that goes on in college.

I think that until we're 21, human beings don't get to know themselves very much.

I read Jilly Cooper when I was on the verge of just growing up and I was becoming a woman.

Every teenager feels like a freak. It's part of being a teenager, part of the individuation from child to adult - those teenage years are who am I? What am I? Where am I going?