Well, I think that part of being young is not exactly knowing why you do some of the things that you do. And it's by exploring your life or experimenting or making mistakes and learning from them hopefully that you start to forge an identity.
Interpretation
Being young often involves exploring one's identity through experiences, mistakes, and learning.
This quote emphasizes the essence of youth, highlighting that not knowing the reasons behind one's actions is a natural part of growing up. It suggests that through exploration, experimentation, and learning from mistakes, individuals gradually shape their identities and understand themselves better.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might say, 'As Stephen Chbosky puts it, being young means exploring your life and learning from your mistakes to forge your identity.'
"I hate you." My sister said it different than she said it to my dad. She meant it with me.She really did. "I love you," was all I could say in return. "You're a freak, you know that? Everyone says so. They always have." "I'm trying not to be.” Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.
I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.
So, I looked up, and we were in this giant dome like a glass snowball, and Mark said that the amazing white stars were really only holes in the black glass of the dome, and when you went to heaven, the glass broke away, and there was nothing but a whole sheet of star white, which is brighter than anything but doesn't hurt your eyes. It was vast and open and thinly quiet, and I felt so small.
If you care about somebody, you should want them to be happy. Even if you wind up being left out.
I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.
So, tomorrow, I’m leaving. And I’m not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to be who I really am. And I’m going to figure out what that is.
All you have in life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name, then you'll never be happy. The thought will always lurk at the back of your mind that people don't trust you.
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
Something settiled inside me, something heavy and hard. It stayed there, and i could not think of one thing to make it go away. I thought, So this must be living, this must be the beginning of the time people later refer to as 'years ago, when I was young'.
If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wanted to live. I wanted to grow up.
There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.
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