A Quote by John Marsden

We had enough years in front of us to be serious and grown-up and respectable. Why rush it? But on the other hand we always complained when teachers and other adults treated us as kids. In fact there was nothing that annoyed me more. So it was a frustrating situation. What we needed was a two-sided badge that said 'Mature' on one side and 'Childish' on the other. Then at any moment we could turn it to whatever side we felt like being and the adults could treat us accordingly.
I grew up in a very religious family and it is the motivating force to every thing I do. I am fortunate to have had adults all around me who really lived their faith, in helping other people and doing the best you can do. The world wasn't so wonderful back then, with segregated rule in the South. But we were never hopeless and we never despaired because we had adults out there struggling with us, being there for us, and buffering us.
When we lose hope that there is a possibility of reaching the other side - I don't even like to say the 'other side' because there are so many sides, and breaking it down into us/them is oversimplifying - it allows us to treat people in a way that's incredibly destructive.
I think Dad didn't really treat us like children; he treated us more like little adults. We were good kids.
If you hit the front end on the right-hand side you could turn that one on by itself and if you hit on the left-hand side you could turn it on and off. And in the middle it was like serious overdrive.
Even the things we are certain about are only an illusion. We are born with a female side and a male side, and these two sides are always fighting and challenging each other. This is why anything we want to do, we have the other side of telling us not to do it, to be careful about it.
Two years ago it felt novel to do the East Side and then tons of other stuff have come up set in that world, but we still liked it. It felt like people are using East Side in other shows because it is cool.
Growing up I always felt like I was living on the other side of the tracks. I knew the people on the other side had more resources, more money, happier families.
Other kids could read, other kids could write, other kids could spell, they could do math. I felt like an alien. I felt like an outcast. I felt like, 'What is going to happen to me?'
We've all recognized the moment when the world has handed us a situation that is bigger than our youth can handle, and we have to grow up in a second. And when you do get to the other side, all it does is take us to this new level of existence that is more beautiful and more complex and, in some ways, more painful.
Our kids are not here to comfort us, to entertain us, or to validate us. Those things need to come from ourselves and from other adults.
Some of us are taught to ask for help. Some of us don't feel comfortable asking for help. Some of us will get into trouble because we don't want to share things with adults - maybe because we're used to getting in trouble. I have two daughters, and they're very different from each other. One will tell me everything. The other barely tells me anything at all. Who do I worry about the most? I worry about the quiet one. But it's something I wish I had had when I was a child, that feeling of having someone I could ask for help.
It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.
My car's my best friend. My office. My home. My location. I have a very intimate sense when I am in a car with someone next to me. We're in the most comfortable seats because we're not facing each other, but sitting side by side. We don't look at each other, but instead do so only when we want to. We're allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views. Silence doesn't seem heavy or difficult. Nobody serves anybody. And many other aspects. One most important thing is that it transports us from one place to another.
We tried so hard. We were always trying to help each other. But not because we were helpless. He needed to get things for me, just as I needed to get things for him. It gave us purpose. Sometimes I would ask him for something that I did not even want, just to let him get it for me. We spent our days trying to help each other help each other. I would get his slippers. He would make my tea. I would turn up the heat so he could turn up the air conditioner so I could turn up the heat.
It's the side-by-side culture of the Talmud I like so much. 'On the one hand' and 'on the other hand' is frustrating for people seeking absolute faith, but for me it gives religion an ambidextrous quality that suits my temperament.
In our childhoods we either get all the social and emotional and ethical skills we need to be well adjusted adults, or we don't. Some of us don't know how to tell someone we like them. A lot of us get depressed and get wasted. Why don't we do something that makes us feel better? Because we don't know any other way. When I didn't have enough skills I compensated with drugs and alcohol. It's like there was a hole in the wall and I put a poster over it.
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