“Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension.”

“Maybe maturity is merely accepting the tally of all the disappearing options of life.”

“Maturity is when you accept the fact that two contradictory ideas can exist together.”

“The achievement of maturity, psychologically speaking, might be said to be the realization and acceptance that we simply cannot live independently from the world, and so we must live within it, with whatever compromises that might entail.”

“…but I don’t think I’m the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don’t care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution…..And I don’t want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I’m tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.”

“Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.”