“It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.”

“The beginning of wisdom, as they say. When you're seventeen you know everything. When you're twenty-seven if you still know everything you're still seventeen.”

“How old are you, anyway?' she asked, squinting at him.There was a pause. At last he said, 'Why do you want to know?'I just wondered,' said Winnie.All right. I'm one hundred and four years old,' he told her solemnly.No, I mean really,' she persisted.Well then.' he said, 'if you must know, I'm seventeen.'Seventeen?'That's right.'Oh,' said Winnie hopelessly. 'Seventeen. That's old.'You have no idea,' he agreed with a nod.”

“We were seventeen, furious at everything because we didn't know what else to do with the fact that the war was over.”

“It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.”

“Was I ignorant, then, when I was seventeen? I think not. I knew everything. A quarter-century's experience of life since then has added nothing to what I knew. The one difference is that at seventeen I had no 'realism'.”