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I'm all about small towns. I think it's a great place to grow up.

Growing up in a small town gives you two things: a sense of place and a feeling of self-consciousness - self-consciousness about one's education and exposure, both of which tend to be limited. On the other hand, limited possibilities also mean creating your own options.

I grew up in a very small town in Florida, like, 7,000 people.

But instead of that stuff you get relationships with people and neighbors that you would never get in a city. People in small towns are a lot more open.

I was born in a very small town in North Dakota, a town of only about 350 people. I lived there until I was 13. It was a marvelous advantage to grow up in a small town where you knew everybody.

I grew up in a town of 5,000, surrounded by cows and oil fields, but there was a lot of opportunity in my tiny little town.

Adolescence is a difficult time at the best of times, and especially in a smaller town - there's all these different energies going on.

I feel like, big city or small town, you can relate to following your parents' footsteps or putting your own dreams on the back burner or vices that we get caught up in - that whole cycle. That's not just a small-town thing. That's a life thing.

In America, people rarely stay in the town where they grew up, rarely stay in close proximity to their parents throughout their lives. You rarely find parents in their old age being taken care of by their children.