“If you want to have a more pleasant,cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, emphatic, consistent, loving parent.”

“If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it.”

“...but maybe it's just the genetic code of a teenager. If your parents forbid something, you have to want it.”

“If you want to understand yourself,Then do not examine yourself.Just love yourself more sincerely,More soulfullyAnd more self-givingly.”

“That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents.”

“And what do you do in the face of this powerlessness? As a parent?""You get to be obsessed and angry," Tom said. "And they get to be the age they are, and act like teenagers if they want to. There is a zero-percent chance you will change them. So we breathe in, and out, talk to friends, as needed. We show up, wear clean underwear, say hello to strangers. We plant bulbs, and pick up litter, knowing there will be more in twenty minutes. We pray that we might cooperate with any flicker of light we can find in the world.”