Teenage years are hard. And, having taught high school for a number of years, I think they're particularly hard on teenage girls. The most self-conscious human beings on the planet are teenage girls.
Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me - he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.
I fantasize about going back to high school with the knowledge I have now. I would shine. I would have a good time, I would have a girlfriend. I think that's where a lot of my pain comes from. I think I never had any teenage years to go back to.
The 1970s, the decade of my teenage years, was a transitional period in American youth culture.
During my teenage years, I rebelled and ate everything under the sun, but when I was 18 or 19, I became vegetarian-focused and got disgusted by meat.
The teenage years are my least favorite, though my son is phenomenal. He does not get in trouble, and he's not a bad kid. But the fact that they think they know so much.
I really can't be bothered going to a barber. And shaving every morning, that's nightmarish. I spent my teenage years covered in tiny little bits of toilet paper.
I'm very happy with my life and career, but I do find myself having serious attacks of nostalgia, and I don't quite know why. Even though I've got to travel the world and do amazing things, I still want to go back to my teenage years and change little aspects of it. It's strange, but it does continue to bug me.
I listened to classic rock and roll, and punk rock. 'Goon Squad' provides a pretty accurate playlist of my teenage years, though it leaves out 'The Who,' which was my absolute favorite band.
I consider my teenage years as being desperately unhappy.
I spent a lot of my teenage years experimenting with who I was as a person and not really getting it right. And then, I think, I realized that I just had to chill out in life.
From their teenage years on, children are considerably more capable of causing parents unhappiness than bringing them happiness. That is one reason parents who rely on their children for happiness make both their children and themselves miserable.
The one thing I really lucked out on is that all through my teenage years, when my sister was a lifeguard and everyone I knew was out in the sun all day - I was in the theater. Everyone called me Casper because I never had a tan, and everyone else was tan all the time. I think that was the luckiest thing of my life.
When I think about my teenage years, when my parents broke up, and feeling alone and being out of control and having to survive... And then other times when you've had to find your own way... that's always been a dominant theme in what I've done.
Writing 'Jughead' in general is a pleasure because - and I think a lot of very tall guys can agree with me on this - there was a time in my teenage years where I just ate all the time and never got full.
I think your teenage years define your musical roots forever. You're always looking for a theme for your high school years.
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?
My mother sent me and my sisters to Italy every year for language school, so I spent a lot of my teenage years in Florence and Rome. After university I went to Harvard for a year, dropped out, and then went to Paris, where I ended up staying 10 years. It's different from being American: If you're British, you're expected to live at the far corners.
For some in my generation, Sept. 11th was a moment of political awakening. For others, the Iraq War or the financial crisis or the rise of Obama were the major events of their teenage years that began to lay the foundation for their views.
I was a huge horror fan, especially in my teenage years. Back then, there were a lot of Italian horror movies - some zombie, some just really strange movies that made no sense. I was really into shock and gore.
I used to spend countless days in my teenage years keeping scorecards, playing cricket and just enjoying myself with friends and having the occasional shandy in the bar.
In my teenage years, there was a lot of angst going on.
Like many authors, I caught the writing bug during my teenage years. I don't remember the exact day or year, but I remember that reading S.E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders' sparked my interest in writing.
