"I think that’s one of the hard parts about being a teenager is you’re just old enough to see all the holes in the adult world around you. But you’re growing up anyway. And you’re not old enough to have any positive substitute, so it’s very bleak. So you don’t feel powerful enough to create an alternative reality, but you’re smart enough to see there’s so much wrong with the world your parents have created that you’re not eager to participate, you don’t want to join. It’s what makes adolescents so apocalyptic."

Lionel Shriver