Growing Up Costs the Earth

"Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor credit cards, they find parking spaces. They marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the Earth, the Earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It's serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. That's what I write. What it really is like. I'm just telling a very simple story."

-Maya Angelou