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"She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We're impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men's work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we're out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, crayon-red, shiny as nails. We think we are friends."
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"I feel despised there, for having so little money; also for once having had so much. I never actually had it, of course. Father had it, and then Richard. But money was imputed to me, the same way crimes are imputed to those who've simply been present at them."
Society
"But if you happen to be a man, sometime in the future, and you've made it this far, please remember: you will never be subjected to the temptation of feeling you must forgive, a man, as a woman."
Self
"Last night I felt the approach of nothing. Not too close but on its way, like a wingbeat, like the cooling of the wind, the slight initial tug of an undertow."
Philosophy
"She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We're impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men's work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we're out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, crayon-red, shiny as nails. We think we are friends."
Youth
"He wants to see, he wants to know, only to see and know. I'm aware that it is this mentality, this curiosity, which is responsible for the hydrogen bomb and the imminent demise of civilization and that we would all be better off if we were still at the stone-worshipping stage. Though surely it is not this affable inquisitiveness that should be blamed."
Curiosity
"How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such ignorance, such carelessness, how could we live? If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next-if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions-you'd be doomed. You'd be as ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to."
Fear
"All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard."
Humor
"Things that are falling apart encourage me: whatever else, I'm in better shape than they are."
Positivity
"Men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit."
Relationship
"I love you. You're the only one." She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words had sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them."
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"Do not lose the enthusiasm of your youth."
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Personal Development
"She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We're impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men's work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we're out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, crayon-red, shiny as nails. We think we are friends."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Young people have limited choices, but they are also useful human resources."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Your youth is certainly finished and old age has definitely arrived if you feel that you are losing enthusiasm, excitement and energy towards your dreams and goals."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Muoth was right. On growing old, one becomes more contented than in one's youth, which I will not therefore revile, for in all my dreams I hear my youth like a wonderful song which now sounds more harmonious than it did in reality, and even sweeter."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Youth's longing misconceived inconsistency.Those whom I deemedChanged to my kin, the friends of whom I dreamed,Have aged and lost our old affinity:One has to change to stay akin to me."
Author Name
Personal Development
"There is something about the defencelessness of youth that moves me to tears. Youth is so vulnerable. It is so ruthless--so sure. So generous and so demanding."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood - she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Don't feel bad if your youth cannot be joyful, but at least make it useful."
Author Name
Personal Development
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