A young man's ambition is to get along in the world and make a place for himself-half your life goes read more

A young man's ambition is to get along in the world and make a place for himself-half your life goes that way, till you're 45 or 50. Then, if you're lucky, you make terms with life, you get released. -Robert Penn Warren.

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight read more

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and read more

Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off their bliss.

If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of read more

If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child.

I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I enjoyed it, and I don't know why I'll read more

I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I enjoyed it, and I don't know why I'll do it again.

Our children's children will hear a good story.

Our children's children will hear a good story.

There are only two things a child will share willingly: communicable diseases and his mother's age.

There are only two things a child will share willingly: communicable diseases and his mother's age.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours read more

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours of parental time --but the truth is that we neglected you. We allowed you a charade of trivial freedoms in order to avoid making those impositions on you that are in the end both the training ground and proving ground for true independence. We pronounced you strong when you were still weak in order to avoid the struggles with you that would have fed your true strength. We proclaimed you sound when you were foolish in order to avoid taking part in the long, slow, slogging effort that is the only route to genuine maturity of mind and feeling. Thus, it was no small anomaly of your growing up that while you were the most indulged generation, you were also in many ways the most abandoned to your own meager devices by those into whose safe-keeping you had been given.