39 Inspiring Coming Of Age Quotes

Navigating the journey from adolescence to adulthood is a universal rite of passage filled with challenges, growth, and self-discovery. Along this transformative path, many look for inspiration and guidance to help them embrace new beginnings, overcome obstacles, and understand their evolving identities. In this post, we present a carefully curated collection of 39 inspiring coming of age quotes. Each quote, from renowned authors and thinkers, offers wisdom and encouragement to anyone embarking on or reflecting upon this significant journey. Whether you're seeking motivation or solace, these quotes capture the essence of growing up and remind us all of the strength and resilience found within.

1. “The one thing I do remember is that as I retraced my steps through all the familiar streets of my life, Inow felt completely lost.” - Carolyn Mackler

2. “Me parece que de nada vale correr si siempre ha de irse por el mismo camino, cerrado, de nuestra personalidad. Unos seres nacen para vivir, otros para trabajar, y otros para mirar la vida. Yo tenia un pequeño y ruin papel de espectadora. Imposible salirme de él. Imposible libertarme. Una tremenda congoja fue para mí lo único real en aquellos momentos.” - Carmen Laforet

3. “As for me I will follow the path of the pink bunnies.” - Magenta Periwinkle

4. “To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me.” - Robert K. Massie

5. “And then I know I'm being a man, not just some kid who's upset and wants it his way.” - Angela Johnson

6. “I wanted to have a good relationship. One that's romantic and dramatic, like in the movies. But I finally became a woman at 17 and learned that men aren't really that simple.” - Ai Yazawa

7. “On est forcé d'être des enfants toute sa vie. C'est pour ça que ceux qui veulent devenir des hommes sont malheureux. Vous voulez chanter l'opéra? On rit de vous. Vous voulez vous conduire en monsieur avec les femmes? Elles vous traitent de tapette si vous n'êtes pas champion avec des muscles gros comme ça. Vous voulez avoir une bonne position dans un bureau? La compétence, c'est toujours les autres qui l'ont.” - Roger Lemelin

8. “Do I look like I want to be involved in your teen love saga? Ask someone who cares.” - Priya Ardis

9. “Soft sun shone down on a misty cathedral at the opposite end of a football-field length courtyard. The cathedral had a long pointed tower with beautiful rose and ivory stained glass windows. Pink-petal flowers and deep green ivy climbed the stones from the ground to it’s roof. A large fountain stood in the middle of the courtyard with water falling from several lion’s heads. Between the misty air and rolling slope of the earth, the grounds reminded me of a long lost fairy tale.” - Priya Ardis

10. “The Mozart sonata Dad picked out begins to play. When we hear the first note, we open the sacks and the ladybugs escape through the opening, taking flight. It's as if someone has dumped rubies from heaven. Soon they will land on the plants in search of bollworm eggs. But right now they are magic-red ribbons flying over our heads, weaving against the pink sky, dancing up there with Mozart.” - Kimberly Willis Holt

11. “Little Joe was still behind him. Eli could feel it. He wanted to look back, but he couldn’t. The tears were too close. If he were Fancy, he’d turn around and kick and buck and moo and do just about anything to keep his calf near. But Eli wasn’t Fancy; he was a farmer.” - Sandra Neil Wallace

12. “Life is a valuable and unique opportunityto discover who you are.But it seems as soon as you nearanswering that age-old question,something unexpected always happensto alter your course.And who it is you thought you weresuddenly changes.Then comes the frustrating realizationthat no matter how long life endures,no matter how many experiencesare muddled through in this existence,you may never really be ableto answer the question....Who am I? Because the answer, like the seasons,constantly, subtly, inevitably changes.And who it is you are today,is not the same person you will be tomorrow.” - Richelle Goodrich

13. “When I grow up, maybe I will bethe first one to circle the sea.Or maybe I will just spend all my daydoing everything my way.Maybe I will be in a world of my ownI just hope not alone.I just know that whatever I doI will never, ever forget about you.” - Oliver Neubert

14. “Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?”“You whacked me on the head with a ball!”“You deserved it.” - Priya Ardis

15. “Matt was almost completely naked. A tattered loincloth and an ugly chain with a yellow diamond were his only apparel.” - Priya Ardis

16. “I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?”Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.” - Priya Ardis

17. “The principles of storytelling do not change. Going home. Coming of age. Sin and redemption. The hero. The journey, The power of love. They are hardwired into us, just like our taste buds process sweet, sour, bitter, and salt. Can a new voice come up with something startling and creative and unprecedented? Absolutely. Can they invent a fifth taste? No. No, they can’t. Can they make it so we don’t like sweet anymore? No, no they can’t.” - Chris Dee

18. “Well, can you tell her that?"He looked down at his feet. "I will. I will."Guy-speak for, "I plan to keep avoiding her until she gives up.” - Priya Ardis

19. “If I were to lock you up in a dungeon, I guarantee you would not be bored.” - Priya Ardis

20. “The last declaration he'd made to me hung between us. The L word. The one that had nothing to do with like.” - Priya Ardis

21. “You see, there is a major downfall to living in a tourist town. You guessed it, the constant turnover of new people. You cannot really connect with anyone because no one is ever here for more than two weeks every year, if they comeback at all. The intruders never thought about what happens once they leave. ~ Stella” - Michele Richard

22. “Perhaps that was the point; life, if you did it right, meant learning and changing. If you didn't, you died- or stopped growing - which amounted to more or less the same thing. So I would slide in and out of different roles until I discovered the one that fit me best.-Deuce, (183)” - Ann Aguirre

23. “He’d used the amulet to read my thoughts again. I pictured smacking him in the face.” - Priya Ardis

24. “Unfortunately, I am only myself. I am scared and alone and unsure, but I am practicing. I am scared and alone and unsure, but that doesn't mean I always will be.Like AJ repeating words, I can repeat being me, until I start to believe it.” - Lisa Burstein

25. “Sometimes milestones are not measured by the accomplishments of society, but by those of integrity.” - Tamara Rose Blodgett

26. “There comes a time in everyone’s life—and I do mean in everyone’s life—when you ask yourself what it is that you’ve been doing with your life. Sometimes you even realize that whatever you’ve been doing all your life, you’ve been doing it wrong. Dead wrong… Son, you want that realization to hit you when you’re 70? Or 50? Or when you’re still young, with your whole life still ahead of you?” - Ali Sheikh

27. “I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.” - Daniel Woodrell

28. “The night seemed suddenly defiled by the absence of music, as if the silence itself was injecting a sickness that only another song could cure.” - Jake Vander Ark

29. “It’s not easy to be God.” - Péter Zilahy

30. “Every time I think about that girl, my mind commits a sin.” - Jake Vander Ark

31. “When left unsatisfied, lust becomes violence.” - Jake Vander Ark

32. “So the first step out of childhood is made all at once, without looking before or behind, without caution, and nothing held in reserve.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

33. “Who is old enough to ask, is old enough to know.” - Sharon Lee

34. “Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.” - Julie Anne Peters

35. “Sometimes, when you were thinking about something, trying to understand it, it opened up in your head without you expecting it to, like it was a soft spongy light unfolding, and you understood, it made sense forever…” - Roddy Doyle

36. “I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win” - Roddy Doyle

37. “But I don't know, in the end, what deserts, chasms, achievements, virtues, and beauties have to do with love. We can love for so many different, and paradoxical, qualities in the object of our love--for strength or for weakness, for beauty or for ugliness, for gaiety or for sadness, for sweetness or for bitterness, for goodness or for wickedness, for need or for impervious independence. Then, if we wonder from what secret springs in ourselves gushes our love, our poor brain goes giddy from speculation, and we wonder what is all meaning and worth. Is it our own need that makes us lean toward and wish to succor need, or is it our strength? What way would our strength, if we had it, incline our heart? Do we give love in order to receive love, and even in the transport or endearment carry the usurer's tight-lipped and secret calculation, unacknowledged even by ourselves? Or do we give with an arrogance after all, a passion for self-definition? Or do we simply want a hand, any hand, a human object, to clutch in the dark on the blanket, and fear lies behind everything? Do we want happiness, or is it pain, pain as the index of reality, that we, in the chamber of our heart, want?Oh, if I knew the answer, perhaps then I could feel free.” - Robert Penn Warren

38. “In my early teens, I heard about Naked Lunch and its mutating typewriters and talking cockroaches. While I would hardly classify its dystopic vision as erotica now, at the time, Naked Lunch was my first foray into consuming smut. It was because of Burroughs that I knew about the particular musk that blooms when a rectum is penetrated, and that death-by-hanging produces spontaneous trouser tents. The first Burroughs I read was Naked Lunch, but I buried myself in a few of his stories, and thus the arc of my recollection is just as non-linear as his narrative.” - Peter Dubé

39. “The river moves, but it follows a path. When it tires of one journey, it rubs through some rock to forge a new way. Hard work, but that's its nature.” - Kekla Magoon