Bildungsroman Quotes

“The day came when she discovered sex, sensuality, and literature; she said, 'I submit! Let my life be henceforth ruled by poetry. Let me reign as the queen of my dreams until I become nothing less than the heroine of God.”
― Roman Payne

“Most of the time it's not the Europeans who belittle us. What happens when we look at them is that we belittle ourselves. When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the depths of our souls. The day arrives when the guilty must return to save those who could not find the courage to leave.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“There is no man,’ he began, ‘however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man—so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise—unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded. I know that there are young fellows, the sons and grand sons of famous men, whose masters have instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement in their schooldays. They have, perhaps, when they look back upon their past lives, nothing to retract; they can, if they choose, publish a signed account of everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile. We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory. I can see that the picture of what we once were, in early youth, may not be recognisable and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we must not deny the truth of it, for it is evidence that we have really lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, of artistic groups—assuming that one is a painter—extracted something that goes beyond them.”
― Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, Part 2

“The next day, the cycle starts again. We’re set out like decorative plates in this cavernous architecture, and such a craggy dining hall it is. Not exactly a Claude Monet cottage, more of a Medieval bastion—a vestige of Roman conquests. It still moans with the rickety sounds of age. I can almost hear the grumblings of ancient inhabitants.”
― Michael Benzehabe

“It is hard to know how to save the world if one has never lived in it.”
― Alex Flinn, Girls of July

“I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on the sun’s warmth. It was a good day. There were many things to think about, but in this moment, I wanted to embrace my surroundings and enjoy them. Sometimes the little things were the best parts of life, and they were always there in front of us, waiting to be noticed.”
― J. Aleong, A Most Important Year

“Boys annoyed her. Girls annoyed her. She should have been a cat.”
― Katie Neipris

“È che non mi piace dover vivere dentro un corpo. Se ha un senso. E penso che magari nel profondo sono solo uno strumento che esiste per trasformare l'ossigeno in diossido di carbonio, un mero organismo in questa...vastità. E mi fa tantissima paura l'idea che quello a cui penso come, tipo, al mio aperte virgolette io chiuse virgolette non sia sotto il mio controllo. Tipo sono sicura che ti sei accorto che in questo momento ho la mano sudata anche se fa troppo freddo per sudare, e odio questa cosa che quando comincio a sudare non riesco a smettere, e poi non riesco a pensare a nient'altro se non che sto sudando. E se non puoi scegliere quello che fai o quello che pensi, allora non sei veramente vero, capito? Forse sono solo una bugia che sto sussurrando a me stessa.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“My teacher taught me a ton of things. Some of t was invaluable, some of it was completely useless. Yours did too, right? Lots of things... countless things. We're on our way there there, too, you know? To their side. The side that leaves behind instead of inherits. It may be troublesome but its the way of the world”
― Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 44: Senjutsu Heir

“I found it strange how people could sit in an airplane flying miles high at hundreds of speeds and not think about it. We got used to magnificent things. I wanted to think it’s cool every time I fly. I wouldn’t want to act overdramatic but just sit there and look out the window for a moment and process what I’m doing. Really process it. Maybe before turning on a movie or going back to normal life, I would begin the flight with a moment like that.”
― J. Aleong, A Most Important Year

“After months of separation her friends still catalyzed her thoughts and challenged her opinions and wrangled with her emotions, and she was relieved to see that they still slid into the familiar patterns, the comfortable ruts of long-established personalities. It was nice but it also worried her. Could there be room for growth? How could you change around the people that knew you best, who knew you backwards and forwards and knew you so well that they defined themselves by you and you by them? How could you possibly evolve, like really evolve and become a whole person all on your own, when your own makeup was inextricably intertwined with someone else’s perception of themselves?”
― Katie Neipris, The Inconvenient Process of Falling

“She’d always pictured her future self as a lone wolf traveling around the world, ensnaring romantic conquests and achieving her wildest and most ambitious goals. She didn’t think that at nineteen she would be so dependent on other people; she pictured herself as an autonomous and untouchable force that occasionally flitted back home to show off her new feathers before flying away to her life that was much more exciting than theirs.”
― Katie Neipris

“I went around the house to the back door thinking, I have been to a dance and a boy has walked me home and kissed me. It was all true. My life was possible.”
― Alice Munro, Dance of the Happy Shades

“Before she came here, she'd thought she could be independent. Now, she knew she could -- but only if she had the help of others and was able to help them in return.”
― Alex Flinn, Girls of July

“If I were a different kind of person, I might say this whole incident is a metaphor for life in general: things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully. (Harold Stein)”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“If I were a different kind of person, I might say this whole incident is a metaphor for life in general: things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“My teacher taught me a ton of things. Some of it was invaluable, some of it was completely useless. Yours did too, right? Lots of things... countless things. We're on our way there there, too, you know? To their side. The side that leaves behind instead of inherits. It may be troublesome but its the way of the world.”
― Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 44: Senjutsu Heir

“What do you do when neither person is wrong yet they completely disagree?”
― J. Aleong, A Most Important Year

“You are small. You have red hair. You don’t realize it yet, but you are about to set out on the most alarming episode of your life so far…”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Speak Dragonese

“A great deal; you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“There is hell and there is war. The two are difficult to distinguish, but hopefully you’ll never know the sting of either. That’s why you need to be good girls. The world is a mysterious place, full of times. An abundance of times. Times. War times. Peace times. Sometimes it is difficult to figure out exactly what time. As you sit here today, ask yourself: What time is it?”
― Sarah Domet, The Guineveres

“But she couldn’t stop. The smell of her burning house still filled her nostrils even as the chilly breeze swept by her enticingly.
The screams that rang out were deafening; flames shot up everywhere. The screams were prolonged and were she, a little child of ten, not so scared, they would have been very irritating for they were constant; they were horror filled, they spelt death and terror.”
― Nagwa Malik, Life Makes A Novel...A Novel

“The story of the self is simply the insight into the emotions of the protagonist and how he interacts with the outside world.”
― Adewale Joel, Learn Creative Writing: A guide to writing perfect drafts

“She knew she'd been unhappy there. She'd said it so often, even she was tired of her moaning. Now she rubbed at the thorn and stinking fur on her cloak and wondered how she could've been so hurt by cold words and sharp looks. Seemed foolish and childish and weak. But that's what growing up is, maybe. Realising what a fucking arse you've been.”
― Joe Abercrombie

“At the same time that I welcomed the busy confusion, I felt a stab of regret for the first sweet lonely months of my life in this city that touched me so deeply. I like the image of my own loneliness. The brief meaningless rendezvous with men quickly forgotten. I promised to keep enough of myself aloof from these new entanglements so that I might go on reveling in that delicious privacy.”
― Margaret Brown Kilik, The Duchess of Angus

“I remember my pastor once said that peace in God doesn’t omit emotion; Jesus was perfect and still cried and felt anger. So peace was, that in the midst of our trials and emotions, our heads could remain above the water without drowning in it. This kind of peace could help us continue to live on through our struggles.”
― J. Aleong, A Most Important Year

“My ferocity was leveled at becoming.”
― Rebecca Rukeyser, The Seaplane on Final Approach

“The only curse you carry, her mother said, is the dark skin I passed on to you. You gotta find a way past that skin. You gotta find your way to the outside of it. Stay in the shade. Don't let it get no darker than it already is. Don't drink no coffee either.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Another Brooklyn

“Time...is a rocking horse. When Krishna was a child, he pulled its ear, released it, and walked away, laughing. It creaked, back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth. Noisy nonstop. We worship Krishna in the child form because we want him to come and grab that Time Horse by its tail; when he does, the horse’s grinning face will come to a halt and
silence will descend. Peace, at last, from the noise of time. Isn’t that the need at the heart of our every prayer, whatever our material demands, whatever words we choose? Peace from the noise of time.”
― Shastri Akella, The Sea Elephants

“¡Au soleil de la Côte d'Azur, au soleil de la Côte d'Azur! Me resultarías mil veces más divertido, más brillante y más humano, tú, sol de la Côte d'Azur, si hicieras como en el cuento de la apuesta entre el Viento y el Sol, que e elemento masculino se dejara estudiar también. Las aguas de tu Mar Mediterráneo me resultarían más salerosas, su quietud haría calmado contraste con el torbellino que a mis ojos desatarías. Pero ahora parece que los hombres de este lado del mundo son más recatados que sus mujeres. ¿Quién tuvo vergüenza primero de la desnudez de su cuerpo? ¿Fue Adán o fue Eva? Como quiera que haya sido, adonde fueres haz lo que vieres: me desnudo.
De pronto, otras ideas me invaden. La anatomía no hace sino comprobarnos la pobre realidad de que el ser humano no ve más allá de la tercera dimensión y llama 'avance' a cuanto más y mejor logra ver objetivamente. Somos pudorosos; incapaces de desnudar nuestros corazones para ---solo sintiéndolo--- decir 'esto existe' ".”
― Ofelia Huamanchumo de la Cuba, Dias de un viaje. Fotorrelatos de una limeña