Quotes
For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun’s bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?" his answer.”
Your brother is still young enough to believe that the past still exists, he said. That the injustices within it await his remedy.
In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once.
You are too calculating. Don't tell me you are young. Youth gives all it can: it gives itself without reserve.
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
Dowling had long since abandoned optimism along with the other illusions of his youth.
p. 138
Second Lieutenant Don Griffiths was typical of the breed. He was young, he didn’t know much, and one of the things he didn’t know was how much he didn’t know.
p. 368
He was still very young, young enough to believe in the tooth fairy, the common sense of Congress, and a great many other unlikelihoods.
p. 130
When you were fifteen, you knew everything always turned out fine in the end. Arthur McGregor was a good deal past twice fifteen. He knew how foolish you were at that age.
p. 71
The lad was at an age where he was inclined to believe things would turn out as he wanted for no better reason than that he wanted them to turn out so.
p. 70
At sixteen, you knew you could do the impossible.
At forty-three, you knew damn well you couldn’t.
p. 144
“What is the younger generation coming to?” she exclaimed: the cry of the older generation throughout recorded history.
p. 126
