My grandmother was born in Russia, and she came through Poland on her way to America in the early 20s. She moved to Brooklyn.
In your early 20s, it was maybe acceptable to have a friend who was taking all of your time and energy and exhausting you and always a drama. When you're in your 30s, or you're starting to have babies, you just can't put up with it anymore, and that's okay, because I think your priorities shift.
The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watched it and was just completely jaw-droppingly shocked at how current it was.
In my early 20s, I set out to kind of find myself. At that time, if you were different or if you ever questioned your gender identity or sexual orientation, society kind of put you in the gay club.
The Beatles had a six-year career, from 1963 to 1969, which - to me, in my early 20s - seemed like a phenomenally long time.
I went around in my teens and early 20s thinking that life was a con trick. I had managed to grow up believing in all sorts of romantic ideas about hard work and justice and truth, and it seemed the real world was much more complicated and shaded than I wanted to believe.
Peggy Atwood, Alice Munro, Hugh Hood, Michael Ondaatje - these are all old friends from my early 20s.
I was a big fan of black gospel. As a kid, there were black groups I sang with from my teen years to my early 20s.
It's one huge arc right until you're in your early 20s. You're always changing and always learning, but it's very much that chapter in your life: fall crazy in love, become extremely angry at little things. It's a tumultuous time.
Rey's parents left her at 5, and we meet her when she's late teens or early 20s, and for someone to keep hopeful that there's a better life to come, I think, is astounding. Though she starts off alone, she very much finds her place in a group of people, and that's lovely.
