Before Puberty Quotes & Sayings

There are three intellectual pursuits, and, so far as I am aware, only three, in which human beings have performed major feats before the age of puberty. They are music, mathematics, and chess. — George Steiner

E have become wealthy, and wealth is the prelude to art. In every country where centuries of physical effort have accumulated the means for luxury and leisure, culture has followed as naturally as vegetation grows in a rich and watered soil. To have become wealthy was the first necessity; a people too must live before it can philosophize. No doubt we have grown faster than nations usually have grown; and the disorder of our souls is due to the rapidity of our development. We are like youths disturbed and unbalanced, for a time, by the sudden growth and experiences of puberty. But soon our maturity will come; our minds will catch up with our bodies, our culture with our possessions. Perhaps there are greater souls than Shakespeare's, and greater minds than Plato's, waiting to be born. When we have learned to reverence liberty as well as wealth, we too shall have our Renaissance. — Will Durant

Her problem was that she could not interpret her own feelings for him. Not since before reaching puberty had she lowered her guard to let another person get so close as she had with him. To be quite honest, he had a trying ability to penetrate her defences and to get her to talk about personal matters and private feelings. Even though she had enough sense to ignore most of his questions, she talked about herself in a way that she would never, even under the threat of death, have imagined doing with any other person. It frightened her and made her feel naked and vulnerable to his will. — Stieg Larsson

J.T Woodland, known as "the cute one" in The Corporation's seventh-grade boy band, Boyz Will B Boyz. Due to the success of their triple-platinum hit, "Let Me Shave Your Legs Tonight, Girl," Boyz Will B Boyz ruled the charts for a solid eleven months before hitting puberty and losing ground to Hot Vampire Boyz. — Libba Bray

He'd met other prodigies in mathematical competitions. In fact he'd been thoroughly trounced by competitors who probably spent literally all day practising maths problems and who'd never read a science-fiction book and who would burn out completely before puberty and never amount to anything in their future lives because they'd just practised known techniques instead of learning to think creatively. (Harry was something of a sore loser.) — Eliezer Yudkowsky

But puberty was ... well, before puberty, at school, I didn't tell kids I was a transvestite 'cause I thought they might kill me with sticks, you know? — Eddie Izzard

Opera was an enormous part of my childhood. My parents were both opera buffs, and they met in the box seat of an opera performance. And I also was a boy soprano, so before puberty hit, I was onstage playing a wide variety of orphans and urchins in all sorts of operas, and the sheer melodrama of their stories was just always appealing to me. — Daniel Handler

As stated before, hypothyroidism may cause premature or delayed puberty. The majority of normal and hypothyroid females begin their cycle at ages 12 or 13. However, a growing number of those with hypothyroidism start their cycle years earlier or begin their periods at age 15 or later. Premature or delayed puberty in males is also becoming more common. — Mark Starr

That's the way to get the chicks for free. And getting the chicks for free is the only true pursuit for a grown-up male. Before puberty, of course, it's avoiding them like the plague. — John Ringo

Adolescence has been recognised as a stage of human development since medieval times
long, long before the industrial revolution
and, as it is now, has long been seen as a phase which centers on the fusion of sexual and social maturity. Indeed, adolescence as a concept has as long a history as that of puberty, which is sometimes considered more concrete, and hence much easier to name and to recognize. — Terri E Apter

Way before puberty, before the journal, before the formulation of my life's mission, when I must have been eight or younger, I had a rule: "Think in complete sentences." No giving way to inner screams or sobs - just keep stringing out words in grammatical order. This was a way to keep from going under — Barbara Ehrenreich

A gun is psychologically a penis-substitute and a symbol of power: the age-range of toy-shop clientele begins at about six or seven, rises sharply just before puberty and declines soon after the discovery of the phallus and its promise of power. From then on, guns are for kids and for the effete freaks and misfits who must seek psycho-orgasmic relief by shooting pheasants. — Adam Hall

Eating disorders are prevalent among women who were sexually abused as children. They seem to have components of other symptoms such as obsessions, compulsions, avoidance of food, and anxiety, and they primarily include a distorted body image and feelings of body shame.
For some women, eating disorders are related to the loss of control over their bodies during the sexual abuse and serve as a means of feeling in control of their bodies now. Eating disorders can also be indicative of the developmental stage and age at which the sexual abuse began. Women with anorexia and bulimia report that they were sexually abused either at the age of puberty or during puberty, when their bodies were beginning to develop and they felt a great deal of body shame from the abuse. By contrast, women with compulsive eating report that the sexual abuse occurred before the age of puberty; they used food for comfort. — Karen A. Duncan

It is similar to one brother asking another, "Why did you grow up to be a drunk?" The answer is "Because Dad was a drunk." The second brother then asks, "Why didn't you grow up to be a drunk?" The answer is "Because Dad was a drunk." Some more complete answers are found in Robert Ressler's classic book Whoever Fights Monsters. He speaks of the tremendous importance of the early puberty period for boys. Before then, the anger of these boys might have been submerged and without focus, perhaps turned inward in the form of depression, perhaps (as in most cases) just denied, to emerge later. But during puberty, this anger collides with another powerful force, one of the most powerful in nature: sexuality. Even at this point, say Ressler and others, these potential hosts of monsters can be turned around through the (often unintentional) intervention of people who show kindness, support, or even just interest. I can say from experience that it doesn't take much. — Gavin De Becker

I approach every film I do in the same way, whether it's an action film or not an action film. I guess if a certain physicality lends itself to action, but I started acting before I reached puberty. I was 7 years old when I started acting. It wasn't until I became a bouncer in New York ... — Vin Diesel

When I was little, I was very loud and loved performing in front of people. I was fearless. When I hit puberty, I became very shy and self-conscious. I still get nervous sometimes before shooting and definitely before big auditions. — Brianna Brown

You know how people say that young people feel immortal? I don't know what they're talking about. I was planning for how I would deal with my death in good conscience well before I even hit puberty. — Nic Pizzolatto

It was one thing to jack off. It was another thing to jack off and not secure your shit before you opened a goddamned door. That was like, Puberty 101. Or Being a Guy 101. Or Basic Fucking Common Sense 101. — Laura Kaye

Before puberty the child's personality has not yet formed and it is easier to guide its life and make it acquire specific habits of order, discipline, and work ... — Antonio Gramsci

Our model citizen is a sophisticate who, before puberty, understands how to produce a baby, but who at the age of thirty will not know how to produce a potato — Wendell Berry

That was a lesson everyone (every human?) learned before puberty, not to let reality seem diminished by fiction. As the proverb went, It's bad enough comparing yourself to Isaac Newton without comparing yourself to Kimball Kinnison. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

After you hit puberty, it's just one thing after the other until the day you die. You have some good years in your twenties, after you've stopped embarrassing yourself constantly and before your back goes out and your knees start to creak. And those are just the physical things. They say as you get older, your essential nature is revealed. Sort of like a balsamic reduction of the soul. — Sarah N. Harvey

The tallest adults are the ones who had the most childhood and adolescent growth before puberty started; puberty typically tacks on a standard nine inches, and then the game's over. "The children who are going to be the biggest adults are those who are tall by age one or two, and have a relatively late puberty," says Rosenfeld. — Arianne Cohen

Name the book that made the biggest impression on you. I bet you read it before you hit puberty. In the time I've got left, I intend to write artistic books - for kids - because they're still open to new ideas. — Gary Paulsen

When assaulted by sexual knowledge for the first time, a girl plunges into a period of blackness, which is required in order to let her emotions catch up with her body.
Sleeping Beauty sleeps. Cinderella waits, and while she waits she works her way through the darkness of depression. Snow White both works and sleeps before she is ready to open her eyes and find a Prince leaning over her. — Joan Gould

The meaningful role of the father of the bride was played out long before the church music began. It stretched across those years of infancy and puberty, adolescence and young adulthood. That's when she needs you at her side. — Tom Brokaw

the most fruitful time to transform pessimistic children into optimistic ones was "before puberty, but late enough in childhood so that they are metacognitive — Paul Tough

I remember I could do - I did Bart Simpson once on the bus. I did, like, a really good Bart Simpson voice on the bus, obviously before I hit puberty. And everybody went, 'Whoa, that sounds just like Bart Simpson.' — Bill Hader

I started puberty very late. I was nearly sixteen. And for complicated reasons this late arrival of my puberty caused me to stop playing competitive tennis. But before my puberty problem, I had trouble with my lower back and with my left testicle. — Jonathan Ames