As a performer, much of my life has been spent in the spotlight. I know how important appearance can be to teens, especially the impact it can have on the way you feel about yourself.
I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.
American teens have the worst of all worlds. . . Our children are bombarded and confronted with sexual messages, sexual exploitation, and all manner of sexual criticism. But our society is by and large sexually illiterate.
I used to write my own versions of famous tales, such as William Tell or Robin Hood, and illustrate them myself, too. When I entered my teens, I got more into horror and science fiction and wrote a lot of short stories. A literary education complicated things and for many years I wrote nothing but poetry. Then I got back to story-telling.
When I was in my teens, I made an appraisal of how comfortable my life could turn out when I became the age I am now. Because of a mechanical failure, the prediction was inexact.
It wasn't being an alcoholic - it was going wild. It happened when I got famous. It was like having my teens in my early thirties: blotting out your life, not having to think about anything.
What defines someone's music taste is their teens and early 20s. It's that combination of your sexual awakening and the music of the time, it fixes you forever.
In my teens, I was never part of the cool crowd.
Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?
A mouth of no distinction but well practiced, before I entered my teens, in irony. For what is irony but the repository of hurt? And what is hurt but the repository of hope?
Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
I always look toward teens on Instagram to really understand what's going on. For some reason, when you're a teen, you just understand the world better than anyone else.
I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.
I was a quiet teenager, introverted, full of angst.
Teens today rule the world. The whole culture - movies, music - is pointed at young people. They have so 'much' power.
When I was in my late teens I was already interested in philosophy.
I spent my teens and early 20s shopping almost exclusively at thrift stores.
We stay in the house so much because I am waiting for the telephone. I seem to be back in my teens, a period I thought I would never have to endure again: my life is spent hoping for things that only someone else can bring about.
Older teens tend to write to me and say, 'Thank you for not writing down to teenagers. '
I believe that it's vital for children and teens to be educated, to be given information to help them understand the impacts humans are having on our water, soil, and air.