He was like a little boy let loose in a toy shop, uncertain which of the attractive treasures to pick up… — Nevil Shute

"If you're going to make your life in a new country you should go before you're twenty-five. After that you start to get associations, little grooves and anchors, that make it difficult to change."

She did not understand what all that meant, but it was evidently something very near his heart, and so she said, "How splendid!"

He was a dark-haired, fresh-faced boy of twenty-one or twenty-two, who adopted the pose that everything was a joke and nothing really mattered.